These were the words of Cardinal Müller, former prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, during a conversation with Riccardo Cascioli on the programme I Venerdì della Bussola.
Newsdesk (11/06/2021 09:30, Gaudium Press) – Riccardo Cascioli, director of the website La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, in his online program I Venerdì della Bussola, had an interesting conversation with German Cardinal Gerhard Müller on several topics.
One of the topics that the Cardinal and Cascioli focused on was the recent resignation of Cardinal Reinhard Marx which was rejected by the Pontiff; and its relation to the so-called German synodal path.
“This resignation and the so-called synodal path are two different things. These two points cannot be confused. However, in parallel, this ‘path’ has also failed because, as we have seen, it goes in a direction that has nothing to do with the Church, with its foundations, with the Bible and the apostolic tradition,” the Cardinal declared, alluding as a “legitimate son” to these “blessings” to homosexual unions carried out last May 10 in several German churches.
The Church does not fail, but men do
The Cardinal affirmed that Cardinal “Marx is responsible for this synodal failure, and now he is blaming a generic failure of the Church (‘The Church is at a standstill,’ in his words). But this is unacceptable: he wants to burden the Pope, who is his friend, with the task of solving problems that he himself avoided, and it doesn’t seem very fair to me”.
However, “the Church is a divine institution, it cannot fail, while men can fail. Judas too failed, even the apostles at Golgotha failed; therefore one cannot speak of a failure of the Church which is by nature infallible.”
The Church was believed to be a political institution
For Cardinal Müller, the great error of the German bishops “is to confuse the Church with a political institution, when in fact the bishops are the successors of the Apostles”. It is true – speaking of sexual abuse – that “many priests have not been faithful to the sixth commandment, but it is not God’s fault. Neither his law nor his Word must be changed. Instead, it must be forcefully said that those who act against the Ten Commandments are guilty.”
The Cardinal pointed out that one of the decisive factors in the crisis of the German Church is its closeness to the Lutheran Protestants, who “cannot be an example for us, since they have a worse situation than ours, with the female priesthood and married clergy, as well as not respecting the indissolubility of marriage. These are political reflections pretending to be about the future of the Church.”
For Cardinal Müller it is not so much a schism that the German bishops seek when they embarked on the synodal path but “they want to establish themselves as the guide of the Church. They believe themselves to be the vanguard, the future, but as Saint Irenaeus of Lyon well said in the second century against the Gnostics, ‘the Christian faith is the same all over the world'”.
“Rome has a great responsibility”
The Cardinal again appeals to the Pope, as “Rome has a great responsibility in maintaining the unity of the universal Church, which is entrusted to the successor of Peter; therefore it must do more for the unity of faith. This is the issue that the Pope must prioritize; climate and migrants are certainly important issues, but they are secondary compared to the unity in faith that the Church needs today.”
In his conversation with Cascioli, Cardinal Müller also lamented – with regard to the time of the pandemic – the mistake made of “to obey the state and permit it to dictate the line to take on the Sacraments and the Eucharist. It is the Church which has the exclusive responsibility for the liturgy; the State has no power to forbid the celebration of Holy Mass. Naturally one can collaborate with governments in matters of security, but one cannot accept limitations on religious freedom, as happened during the pandemic in a large number of countries, transforming the Church into an institution under the authority of the State. An authority that has been converted into authoritarianism.”
With information from Everyday Compass https://brujulacotidiana.com/es/cisma-y-abusos-marx-es-el-responsible-del-fracaso
