Pray for the souls of the deceased dubia Cardinals. Sign the pledge here.

September 6, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) -- Cardinal Robert Sarah, head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, paid tribute today to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, who died at 79 after battling a long illness.

Tweeting in French, Sarah called Caffarra a “great servant of the Church, friend of John-Paul II, [and an] extraordinary theologian.”

Le Cardinal Caffarra est mort. Je veux rendre hommage à un immense serviteur de l'Église, ami de Jean-Paul II, théologien extraordinaire +RS pic.twitter.com/lt3reLDdrB — Cardinal R. Sarah (@Card_R_Sarah) September 6, 2017

Coming from a leading Vatican prelate, the tweet is significant given Cardinal Caffarra’s involvement in questioning Pope Francis on the orthodoxy of the Pope’s 2016 Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

READ: Dubia signer Cardinal Caffarra dies awaiting Pope’s clarification

Caffarra was one of the four cardinals who submitted to the Pope five yes-or-no questions asking if the exhortation upholds perennial Catholic teaching on marriage, the sacraments, and the role of conscience in making moral decisions.

Sarah has recently come out strongly against shepherds in the Church who he says are misleading the flock. Last week he rebuked Jesuit priest and Vatican consultant Fr. James Martin for being “one of the most outspoken critics of the church’s message with regard to sexuality.”

“As a mother, the church seeks to protect her children from the harm of sin, as an expression of her pastoral charity…People who identify as members of the LGBT community are owed this truth in charity, especially from clergy who speak on behalf of the church about this complex and difficult topic,” the cardinal wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

“Those who speak on behalf of the church must be faithful to the unchanging teachings of Christ, because only through living in harmony with God’s creative design do people find deep and lasting fulfillment,” he added.