Rome (kath.net) Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, in an interview with the television station
EWTN, called on Pope Francis to seek a reconciliation with his critic,
Archbishop Viganò. Müller also called on the pope to give answers to questions from the former US nuncio. "The people of God have a right to know what happened."
Archbishop Viganò accused Pope Francis of lifting sanctions on former US Cardinal McCarrick in August. For Müller it is clear that one can always make mistakes. "But we have to learn from these mistakes and we need to get better at abuse cases in the Church." According to Müller, Francis must preserve the unity of the Church and overcome the division of the faithful. "We are a Church united in faith, not a Church with a conservative or liberal ideology."
Poignant are also statements by Cardinal Müller about the English Cardinal Cormac Murphy - O'Connor, who is also accused of abuse cover-up and where Francis is accused of having stopped a corresponding investigations by the Congregation of the Faith. Asked by EWTN if Francis had forced him to stop the investigations, Müller only stated that he was not allowed to speak here because of papal secrecy. At the same time he emphasized that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith needed more independence here, as the Congregation still needed a special permission from the Pope for cardinals and bishops: "I can not go into detail because I am bound by the papal secret, but I can say that every trial of bishops or cardinals in the Congregation requires the permission of the pope. That's a problem, we should change that point. The Congregation must begin its investigation, and there is no need for interference by the pope or the pope's friends, who say that the Congregation is dogmatic, that there are hardliners that Müller is German, that it is too heavy; All this has to be put outside. There must be a normal process and only in the end must the Pope be informed, and his is the final decision. But we can not be hindered in the process. We need the independence of the ecclesiastical courts in the canonical process.
"The big problem of this pontificate are the so-called friends of the pope. And we, his true friends, are called enemies of the pope by the mass media, but the category of friendship or hostility is not useful in this case. It requires proper management of the issues of faith, discipline and morality and not this system of personal relationships. Every time there is a group of Cardinals with the Pope, everything happens because some of them personally ask the Pope: I like the Bishop for personal reasons, not because he is the most suitable person, and so on, then the Bishops' Congregation is bypassed."
The cardinal said: "It is not good that the Pope here has the right to stop a necessary investigation."
The cardinal also made it clear that the problem of abuse in the Church is not clericalism or pedophilia, but aggressive homosexuality: "The vast majority of clerical abuse victims are not children, but teenagers and the mature. Any attack against the sixth commandment is a mortal sin. 80 percent and more of the victims are boys aged 14 and over; they are homosexual attacks, not pedophiles. It's not about kids, it's about teens and older people."
When asked about the Youth Synod, Müller said that they did not have a special teaching authority. He does not understand where this idea comes from, that synods should have a teaching authority. "A synod of bishops is not an ecumenical council, so it has no teaching authority, nor can the pope change the basic constitution of the Church."
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG
Archbishop Viganò accused Pope Francis of lifting sanctions on former US Cardinal McCarrick in August. For Müller it is clear that one can always make mistakes. "But we have to learn from these mistakes and we need to get better at abuse cases in the Church." According to Müller, Francis must preserve the unity of the Church and overcome the division of the faithful. "We are a Church united in faith, not a Church with a conservative or liberal ideology."
Poignant are also statements by Cardinal Müller about the English Cardinal Cormac Murphy - O'Connor, who is also accused of abuse cover-up and where Francis is accused of having stopped a corresponding investigations by the Congregation of the Faith. Asked by EWTN if Francis had forced him to stop the investigations, Müller only stated that he was not allowed to speak here because of papal secrecy. At the same time he emphasized that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith needed more independence here, as the Congregation still needed a special permission from the Pope for cardinals and bishops: "I can not go into detail because I am bound by the papal secret, but I can say that every trial of bishops or cardinals in the Congregation requires the permission of the pope. That's a problem, we should change that point. The Congregation must begin its investigation, and there is no need for interference by the pope or the pope's friends, who say that the Congregation is dogmatic, that there are hardliners that Müller is German, that it is too heavy; All this has to be put outside. There must be a normal process and only in the end must the Pope be informed, and his is the final decision. But we can not be hindered in the process. We need the independence of the ecclesiastical courts in the canonical process.
"The big problem of this pontificate are the so-called friends of the pope. And we, his true friends, are called enemies of the pope by the mass media, but the category of friendship or hostility is not useful in this case. It requires proper management of the issues of faith, discipline and morality and not this system of personal relationships. Every time there is a group of Cardinals with the Pope, everything happens because some of them personally ask the Pope: I like the Bishop for personal reasons, not because he is the most suitable person, and so on, then the Bishops' Congregation is bypassed."
The cardinal said: "It is not good that the Pope here has the right to stop a necessary investigation."
The cardinal also made it clear that the problem of abuse in the Church is not clericalism or pedophilia, but aggressive homosexuality: "The vast majority of clerical abuse victims are not children, but teenagers and the mature. Any attack against the sixth commandment is a mortal sin. 80 percent and more of the victims are boys aged 14 and over; they are homosexual attacks, not pedophiles. It's not about kids, it's about teens and older people."
When asked about the Youth Synod, Müller said that they did not have a special teaching authority. He does not understand where this idea comes from, that synods should have a teaching authority. "A synod of bishops is not an ecumenical council, so it has no teaching authority, nor can the pope change the basic constitution of the Church."
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG