The following comes from a Feb. 21 article on The Catholic Thing by Fr. Gerald Murray.
Now that the initial excitement has died down some, it’s a good time to take a calmer look at Cardinal Gerhard Mueller’s recently published Manifesto of Faith.
Troubled are the faithful these days. The doctrinal and moral chaos in the Church is manifest and grave. We are seeking both guidance and the courageous refutation of errors. Mueller acts as a good shepherd in protecting the flock that is wandering in ignorance and imperiled by false teachings.
Mueller writes, “…Many wonder today what purpose the Church still has in its existence, when even bishops prefer to be politicians rather than to proclaim the Gospel as teachers of the Faith.”
The clerical politician in the Church is concerned with pleasing those in the hierarchy who can advance his career. He ignores, tempers, and even discards the hard truths of the Gospel when he senses that those truths will frustrate his ambitions.
Mueller calls to repentance those shepherds who disturb the faith of the sheep: “The mediation of faith is inextricably bound up with the human credibility of its messengers, who in some cases have abandoned the people entrusted to them, unsettling them and severely damaging their faith.”
A prime example is the waffling about who can properly receive Communion. This is the poisoned fruit of the disastrous innovation in footnote 315 of Amoris Laetitia that authorizes a practice always forbidden by the Church, namely the administration of the Holy Eucharist to those who are in an adulterous “second marriage.” He likewise rebukes those who would claim, as some have, that the Eucharist should be administered to Protestants. Mueller rejects these innovations, citing St. Paul and the Catechism.
Mueller further reminds us that “[t]he Church is not a man-made association whose structure its members voted into being at their will. It is of divine origin.”
Bishops are ambassadors entrusted with a message not of their own making. They must not distort that message.
A strong point in the Manifesto is the reminder that the true mission of the Church is the salvation of souls. The reality of Hell for souls who die in mortal sin is something that we rarely hear about from the pulpit.
Cardinal Mueller simply states what was, until recently, commonplace and taken for granted by all Catholics. Yet now he is accused of being a new Martin Luther by his fellow German cardinal, Walter Kasper (which is strange, given Kasper’s affinity for Luther).
Mueller deserves our thanks and prayers. The good fight for Catholic truth must be fought no matter what the cost.
I find the references to Martin Luther ironic. Those of us that follow traditional priests see that the church has suffered a protestant revolution since Vatican Ii. One priest said that all of iMartin Luther’s 95 theses have been implemented.
I found them ironic because Cardinal Kasper wrote a whole book about Martin Luther which “recognizes him for his insight” and has been called the “Catholic appreciation of Luther.”
I recall reading somewhere — i don’t recall the citation– a prominent Catholic author writing that, in their opinion, if Luther had stayed in the Church, most of the theses would have been implemented within one hundred years, which is warp speed for the Vatican. Of course it took the Vatican four centuries to acknowledge Galileo was correct.
Nothing new for Mueller. He’s been bold for quite some time which is probably why he no longer holds his prefecture at CDF….It also speaks to the reality that no one has anything on him.
I recall that when Mueller was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope Benedict XVI, many in the orthodox Catholic community expressed concern and even alarm. Today Mueller is one of the few defending the faith.
Mike M., although Galileo’s theory was right, he could not prove it to the satisfaction of the other scientists. The pope at that time, with the advice of other scientists, was right to tell Galileo not to present as fact what he could not yet prove. It took another scientist later to prove Galileo’s theory.
Yes, this is correct. Most people don’t understand what was in play concerning Galileo and they believe myths about the whole thing. It took the development of sufficiently strong telescopes to be able to detect stellar parallax to prove that the earth moved in space. That didn’t happen for a couple hundred years after Galileo.