Your thoughts? Cardinal Müller dismisses need for 'fraternal correction' of pope

Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller, recently stated that the Church is "very far" from a situation in which the pope is in need of "fraternal correction" because he has not put the faith and church teaching in danger.

Interviewed Jan. 9 on the Italian all-news channel, TGCom24, he reportedly stated that Pope Francis' document on the family, Amoris Laetitia, is "very clear" in its teaching.

Cardinal Müller is obviously a smart man. Given the fact that a brother cardinal of the stature of Cardinal Burke has, together with other cardinals, expressed various dubia and questioned the teaching of Amoris Laetitia on key points, one has to ask why the head of the CDF is saying this.

The CNS article concludes with some remarks that may suggest a possible answer. Cardinal Müller says that "everyone, especially cardinals of the Roman church, have the right to write a letter to the pope. However, I was astonished that this became public, almost forcing the pope to say 'yes' or 'no'" to the cardinals' questions about what exactly the pope meant in "Amoris Laetitia."

"This, I don't like," Cardinal Muller said.

Revisionists mount calumnious pre-synod campaign to marginalize Cardinal Pell

What are the Judas priest scumbags up to now? See the details for yourself. Cardinal Pell's numerous enemies in the Roman Curia have reached a new low:

"[N]ow they use an English member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors established by Pope Francis himself (abuse survivor Peter Saunders) on Australian private television (Channel Nine) to criticize the Cardinal and say that he "has to go" and that his position is "untenable" due to supposed failures of leadership when dealing with such matters when he was Archbishop of Melbourne....

"This is not about the Cardinal's tenure in Victoria; this is about his position in the Curia now and especially in the Synod. The goal is clear: it is to weaken Cardinal Pell by all sides so that he may be silent and meek in the Synod Hall in October, quite unlike the way he was last October, when he did not let the "Progressives" move against the words of Christ as they had planned."

Cardinal Pell has issued a statement. Read more >>

D. G. Hart and Ross Douthat: Should the tail of Papal biography wag the dog of Church policy?

D. G. Hart, "Should Biography Be So Important?" (Old Life, April 22, 2015):

Ross Douthat’s article on Pope Francis reflects the smarts, insights, and courage that characterizes almost everything the columnist writes. His conclusion about a potential disruption of the church by the current pope is again refreshing, especially coming from a conservative, since most converts and apologists hum merrily the tune of “nothing changes, we have the magisterium.” Douthat recognizes that this ecclesiology makes it almost impossible for conservatives to stop a progressive-led disruption:

In the age of Francis, this progressive faith seems to rest on two assumptions. The first is that the changes conservatives are resisting are, in fact, necessary for missionary work in the post-sexual-revolution age, and that once they’re accomplished, the subsequent renewal will justify the means. The second is that because conservative Catholics are so invested in papal authority, a revolution from above can carry all before it: the conservatives’ very theology makes it impossible for them to effectively resist a liberalizing pope, and anyway they have no other place to go.

But the first assumption now has a certain amount of evidence against it, given how many of the Protestant churches that have already liberalized on sexual issues—again, often dividing in the process—are presently aging toward a comfortable extinction. (As is, of course, the Catholic Church in Germany, ground zero for Walter Kasper’s vision of reform.)

Contemporary progressive Catholicism has been stamped by the experience of the Second Vatican Council, when what was then a vital American Catholicism could be invoked as evidence that the Church should make its peace with liberalism as it was understood in 1960. But liberalism in 2015 means something rather different, and attempts to accommodate Christianity to its tenets have rarely produced the expected flourishing and growth. Instead, liberal Christianity’s recent victories have very often been associated with the decline or dissolution of its institutional expressions.

Which leaves the second assumption for liberals to fall back on—a kind of progressive ultramontanism, which assumes that papal power can remake the Church without dividing it, and that when Rome speaks, even disappointed conservatives will ultimately concede that the case is closed.

Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

Important: "Cardinal Müller: foundations for a return to the Magisterium - and the limits of Papal power"

Don Pio Pace, "Cardinal Müller: foundations for a return to the Magisterium - and the limits of Papal power" (Rorate Caeli, March 11, 2015):

God only allows evil so as greater good may be accomplished. The immense disorder of the assemblies of the Synod on the Family prompts beautiful professions of faith by high-placed prelates of the Church, who are signs of hope for the future of the Church.

The extreme-progressive French magazine Golias moreover notes with disquiet the "danger" that men such as Cañizares, Burke, Müller, Ranjith, Ouellet, Sarah, and other "young" Cardinals (around 65 years old) represent to their viewpoint, that is, in the perspective of a further liberalization of the Church's constitution, adding to them some over seventy-year-olds, such as Scola, Caffarra, Pell, among others.

Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the Cardinals who took part in the authorship of the book "Remaining in the Truth of Christ", along with his brothers Brandmüller, Burke, Caffara and De Paolis, has, for example, just made public a conference that he presented on the past January 13, in Esztergom, Hungary, on the "Theological nature of the Doctrinal Commissions [of the Episcopal Conferences] and the role of Bishops as Doctors of the Faith".

Magister on the Curial reform, Papal flogging, and gap between words and deeds

Sandro Magister, "Francis Flogs the Curia. But What a Gap Between Words and Deeds" (www.chiesa, January 23, 2015): "The summit on the reform of the Church’s central government is approaching. But in the meantime, the pope is moving forward on his own. In some cases, driving out the good and rewarding the bad ..."

Aberrations, Confusion, Synodal Machinations

From "New Oxford Notes" (New Oxford Review, December 2014):

Aberrations, Confusion, Synodal Machinations

December 2014

When asked for his thoughts on this October’s highly controversial Extraordinary Synod on the Family, Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said, “I was very disturbed by what happened. I think confusion is of the devil, and I think the public image that came across was of confusion.” His off-the-cuff response during a question-and-answer session following a lecture sponsored by the journal First Things does not translate, as many press pundits have suggested, into a full-on condemnation of the synod or the synod fathers. He didn’t actually go so far as to say that the synod itself was a cacophony of confusion. Nonetheless, Archbishop Chaput was disturbed — disturbed enough to remind everyone present that “confusion is of the devil,” a theological aphorism unpopular in the contemporary culture.

This “image” of confusion was substantially formed by the ill-considered — and, yes, confusing — language in the synod’s interim relatio (released Oct. 13), a working document offering proposals that would push the Church to be “more welcoming” to gay Catholics, cohabiting couples, and the divorced and remarried. Vatican reporter John Thavis called the relatio a “pastoral earthquake” because many of its proposals were unprecedented, and many Catholics found them confusing at best. But to suggest that the confusion was entirely a byproduct of media coverage — and for the record, Archbishop Chaput did not do this — is to misunderstand the substance of the synod. The interim report, offered up by the Vatican Press Office halfway through the two-week- long synod, afforded the public a glimpse into the inner workings of the Vatican’s task force, manned by prelates handpicked by Pope Francis and widely regarded as his ideological counterparts. It shone a light on a house divided between reformers who seem bent on transforming the Church into a replica of the Anglican Communion, and Catholic leaders who want to clarify and strengthen the Church’s positions on marriage and the family in the face of the trend to ratify same-sex marriage, cohabitation, and permissive divorce.

Some have suggested that the widely publicized release of the interim relatio — an action contrary to standard operating procedure — was a calculated maneuver by media-savvy reformers seeking to garner support for the implementation of their agenda by giving the impression that a consensus on the debated topics had already been reached. Whether or not this is true, not all synod participants were happy with the release of this working document. “The message has gone out: This is what the Synod is saying. This is what the Catholic Church is saying,” South Africa’s Wilfrid Cardinal Napier said at a Vatican press conference the day after the release of the relatio. “And it’s not what we’re saying at all. No matter how we try correcting that…there’s no way of retrieving it.” He explained that some controversial statements made by certain individuals were included in the report as if those statements reflected the majority view of the bishops in attendance.

The release of the relatio was more revealing than confusing. Anyone who followed the preparations for the synod will know that Pope Francis enlisted the help of Walter Cardinal Kasper and Óscar Andrés Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, both of whom are followers of the late reformer Carlo Cardinal Martini, to push through several controversial proposals for serious discussion. First and foremost, Cardinal Kasper, a combative supporter since the early 1990s of dropping the Communion ban for the divorced and remarried, was given a high-profile opportunity to present his pet proposal to a consistory of cardinals in February. Pope Francis lavished praise on Kasper’s presentation, lending credence to the German cardinal’s repeated claim in the ensuing months that he has “coordinated” with Francis and was speaking for the pontiff. (Pope Francis, by the way, never made a move to correct this conception.)

"No more 'princes of the Church'—the Pope's new model for the College of Cardinals"

Phil Lawler, "No more 'princes of the Church'—the Pope's new model for the College of Cardinals" (CatholicCulture.org, January 5, 2015).

Papa Bergoglio's new cardinals

Via Sandro Magister, from the blog Settimo Cielo (Seventh Heaven), only in Italian: "The new cardinals: Everything as Francesco Commands, he only" (L'Espresso, January 4, 2015). No Americans. Only one from an Eastern Church (Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel of Addis Ababa), as noted by Tim Ferguson.

Pope bids "Merry Christmas" to members of the Curia

Nicole Winfield, "Pope Francis Delivers Blistering Christmas Message To Vatican Curia" (Huffington Post, December 22, 2014).

Never go full osterich, son

Dale Price, "The problem with letting a smile be your umbrella?" (Dyspeptic Mutterings, November 13, 2014). After a brief discussion of Cardinals Burke, Müller, Pell in the context of Vatican politics, Price asks:

Still, why should you care?

Number 1, "Vatican politics" gives you your bishop. Cupich, remember. In other words, "Personnel is policy." If it's "clericalism" to worry about who your shepherd is going to be, then we should all be clericalists.

Second, there's a trend here, and it's pretty much all bad:

Pope Francis has made statements against the two tendencies of progressivism and traditionalism, without however clarifying what these two labels encompassed. Yet, if by words he distances himself from the two poles which confront each other in the Church today, by facts all tolerance is reserved for “progressivism”, while the axe falls upon what he defines as “traditionalism”.

Precisely. If you're a solid progressive, you get high-profile invites to significant Church events even if you're a coddler of abusive priests. [Read more about the dreadful Danneels in the reliably rad-trad Tablet.] Sadly, it appears that mercy is only for those of confirmed progressive bona fides. Whereas demotions, removals and defenestrations of entire orders are reserved only for those with the odor of Tradition.

But I'm sure none of that would ever percolate down to the local level, right?

[Hat tip to JM]

(1) Five conservative prelates removed from Curia; (2) Cologne annual archdiocesan budget tops obscene $1 Billion funded by tax and porn

Implications of the exile of Cardinal Burke to Malta

In case you missed it, some informative details by Sandro Magister, "Vatican Diary / Exile to Malta for Cardinal Burke" (www.chiesa, September 17, 2014). Are you scratching your head too?

Thompson interview on Pope's effort to clean up the Roman Curia

Damian Thompson, "Revealed: the Pope's war with the Vatican" (The Spectator, August 23, 2014). Interesting stuff:

If you want to understand how Pope Francis is planning to change the Catholic church, then don’t waste time searching for clues in the charming, self-effacing press conference he gave on the plane back from South Korea on Monday.

It’s easy to be misled by the Pope’s shoulder-shrugging interviews and impromptu phone calls.... The media has concluded that Francis wants the church to change its stance on divorcees and same-sex couples.

But the media are wrong. Neither of these subjects is high on Francis’s agenda — and, even if they were, he wouldn’t alter Catholic teaching on sexuality.

The first non-European Pope was elected to do one thing: reform the Roman Curia, the pitifully disorganised, corrupt and lazy central machinery of the church....

... To quote a senior bishop: ‘Benedict allowed the Roman Curia, and specifically the Italians in it, to kill his pontificate. Francis will not permit that to happen.’ He will strike first. (emphasis added)

For the record: an important article on the Vatican "lobby"

"Don Ariel and the most powerful lobby in the world: Catholica interviews Don Ariel di Gualdo -- Questions about a lobby ..." (Rorate Caeli, November 4, 2013). Excerpt:

The progressive champions of dialogue and collegiality use aggression and coercion against anyone who thinks outside of the “ religiously correct.” It is always possible to make light of the dogmas of the Faith, to deconstruct them according to an anthropological logic, but woe to those who dare place in doubt the “sacred” and “infallible” character of the magisterium exercised by some theologians imbued by Hegel and the theology of Karl Rahner - thoughts that lead them alongside modernism and heterodoxies of every type: that [type of] man will be banned from this united and powerful “clique” in the Roman Curia as well as from the Pontifical Universities.

Read more >>

Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith's second exile

First exiled in 2004 when, as adjunct secretary of Propaganda Fide, he was suddenly nominated Nuncio to Indonesia by Pope John Paul II. Now, under mounting pressures against the formidable Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, it looks like Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, will be going back to his native Sri Lanka, as Archbishop of Columbo, its capital city. See:

• The Scapegoat Rajnith to Columbo (Rorate Caeli, April 30, 2009)
• Rajnith to Columbo? Follow-up (Rorate Caeli, May 7, 2009),

Apparently Cañizares, the former Archbishop of Toledo, nicknamed 'the small Ratzinger', wished that Ranjith would remain in Rome.

Rumor has it ...

"Pell as new Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops?" (Rorate Caeli, January 10, 2009):

French ultra-"Progressive" religious weekly Golias reports on possible replacements for some important heads of dicasteries who have reached the age limit or will reach it soon.

Cardinal Re, Prefect of Bishops, reaches the age limit next January 30. Other rumors are included in the article, but none so interesting as this one: Golias reports that it "should be known that one of the most mentioned names for the Congregation for Bishops is that of the ultra-Conservative [sic] Cardinal George Pell, of Sydney".

Cardinal Cañizares Llovera new head of CDW?

The Spanish press has been anticipating for months the appointment of Cardinal Cañizares Llovera of Toledo, Primate of Spain, as the new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. In fact, it is no longer considered a rumor, but as a certainty ("Cardinal Cañizares," Rorate Caeli, July 6, 2007). Notably, as one commentator at Rorate Caeli observes, Cardinal Cañizares is known to be a devoted supported of the Tridentine Mass, to have celebrated it himself, fostered it, promoted it among religious orders, and visited the Institute of Christ the King in Gricigliano, Italy. He has been compared to Archbishop Raymond Burke.

News roundup

Item 1: The SSPX

We do not have the text of the official letter from the SSPX yet, but from all information points, it looks like the intent of the letter is, in effect, to offer a non-response to the Holy See's five conditions spelled out by Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos on behalf of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

• "SSPX spokesman: Letter was sent on Thursday; SSPX 'has no intention to respond to the ultimatum'" (Rorate Caeli, June 27, 2008)
  
  
• "Galarreta: 'We will not follow it'; Let us 'follow the steps'" (Rorate Caeli, June 27, 2008)
  
  
• "Lefebvrites - no intention of 'responding' to Vatican ultimatum" (WDTPRS, June 27, 2008)
  
  
• "Williamson: 'Our answer will be negative'" (Rorate Caeli, June 26, 2008)
  
  
• Then there's this: Fr. Zuhlsdorf, "2001 - Bp. Fellay: 'If he calls me, I go.'" (WDTPRS, June 27, 2008)
  
  
• And this: Fr. Zuhlsdorf, "Thoughts on the SSPX opportunity" (WDTPRS, June 27, 2008)

Item 2: Archbishop Burke to leave St. Louis

• "Curial changes in motion - II" (Rorate Caeli, June 27, 2008)
  
  
• "Goodbye, St. Louis: Holy Father Taps Archbishop Burke as Prefect of Apostolic Signatura" (St. Louis Catholic, June 27, 2008) [Good detail on Abp. Burke]

Item 3: Church of England defection(s)

This just in:

• Fr. Zuhlsdorf, "Anglican Bishop(s) - swimming?" (WDTPRS, June 27, 2008)

Archbishop Ranjith, victim of curial Motu Proprio wars?

"Motu Proprio wars in the Roman Curia Ranjith off to Sri Lanka?" (Rorate Caeli, April 12, 2008) offers a translation of a detailed article from Italia Oggi by Andrea Bevilacqua, with the following appended comment:

Editorial Note: The pressures against Archbishop Ranjith are extremely strong within the Roman Curia, as first reported last month. There is no doubt of the Pontiff's great love for him: Ranjith was chosen to replace Bugninist Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino (Benedict's first bold removal of a Curial name) months before Bertone himself was named. The hatred towards Ranjith is strong in Italian circles in the Curia: his immaculate honesty doomed him in Propaganda Fide during the Wojtyla pontificate; now, his bold defense of Papal prerogatives embodied in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum increases the hatred for him. We hope and pray Pope Benedict does not surrender to the intense movement led by the wolves in the Curia against Archbishop Ranjith.

If Ranjith goes to Sri Lanka, the article suggests, he could quite possibly come back a Cardinal.

[Hat tip to A.S.]