Outspoken on issues such as same-sex marriage and immigration, Robert Sarah of Guinea is a leading figure among conservative Catholic cardinals who want a break with the late Pope Francis, AFP reported.

At 79, Sarah is one of the oldest cardinals who will participate in the conclave next week. Trained by French missionaries and supported by conservative Catholics in the French-speaking world, Sarah has some explosive views.

"What Nazism, fascism and communism were for the 20th century, Western ideologies on homosexuality and abortion and Islamic fanaticism are today," he said at a meeting in 2015.

In January 2024, he spoke on behalf of many African bishops, condemning as "heresy" the Holy See's text paving the way for the blessing of same-sex couples.

In October 2023, he was one of five conservative cardinals who publicly called on Francis to confirm Catholic doctrine on same-sex couples and the ordination of women.

On the issue of immigration, he criticised the wave of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe, stating that young people were attracted by the idea of an "El Dorado" that did not exist.

"We are taking away young people from Africa, the lifeblood that could develop it," he said in 2021.

"Europe, if it continues in this direction, will have no future—it will be invaded by a foreign population," he added in the same interview, speaking of "self-destruction."

Many experts believe that his views make him too controversial to attract the two-thirds majority needed to become pope.

Sarr was born in 1945 in Ourus, when Guinea was still a French colony, the only son of a family of farmers. He went abroad to study, where he was a student of French missionaries in Côte d'Ivoire, but returned after Guinea's independence in 1958. He was ordained a priest in Conakry in 1969. A decade later, he was appointed bishop by Pope John Paul II at the age of 34, the youngest at the time.

Sarr's conservative views on social issues were in line with those of the majority in the Muslim country of Guinea and made him popular among traditional Catholics.

He is the author of numerous works, most notably on John Paul II, who appointed him secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in 2001, and on Pope Benedict XVI, who made him a cardinal in 2010. As an admirer of Benedict, Sarah is an advocate of a strict approach to the liturgy.

Francis appointed him prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2014, but his appointment to this Vatican department was not renewed in 2021. | BGNES