There is a climate of fear in the Curia as people worry “spies” will bad-mouth them to the Pope, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said.
In an extensive interview with National Catholic Register, Cardinal Gerhard Müller said Pope Francis is surrounded by “false friends” who are acting like children in a boarding school by privately denouncing people they disagree with.
“I heard it from some houses here, that people working in the Curia are living in great fear: If they say one small or harmless critical word, some spies will pass the comments directly to the Holy Father, and the falsely accused people don’t have any chance to defend themselves,” the cardinal said.
“These people, who are speaking bad words and lies against other persons, are disturbing and disrupting the good faith, the good name of others whom they are calling their brothers.”
Cardinal Müller said this was happening not just in the Curia, but also in colleges and universities, where people who question Amoris Laetitia, particularly the much-discussed Footnote 351, put their careers in jeopardy.
“It’s the same in some theological faculties — if anybody has any remarks or questions about Amoris Laetitia, they will be expelled, and so on. That is not maturity. A certain interpretation of the document’s Footnote 351 cannot be criteria for becoming a bishop.”
Regarding the ongoing debate over Amoris Laetitia, the Cardinal called for dialogue and criticised those who try to silence their opponents, accusing them of “un-Christian behaviour”.
“It is a very big danger for the Church that some ideological groups present themselves as the exclusive guardians of the only true interpretation of Amoris Laetitia. They feel they have the right to condemn all people of another standpoint as stupid, rigid, old-fashioned, medieval, etc.
“Nobody can, for example, say Cardinal Caffarra didn’t understand anything of moral theology. Sometimes the un-Christian behaviour is printed in L’Osservatore Romano, the semi-official Vatican newspaper, or given in official organs of the media, to make polemics and rhetoric. This cannot help us in this situation — only a profound theological discussion will.”
Pope Francis, he added, should have granted an audience to the cardinals who submitted the dubia.
“The best thing would have been for the Holy Father to have had an audience before their publication. Now we have the spectacle of a trial of strength. It’s better to speak before and to deepen the questions and give good answers,” the cardinal said.
“A possibility of the solution could be a group of cardinals engaged by the Holy Father to begin a theological disputation with some prominent representatives of the dubia and the “corrections” about the different and sometimes controversial interpretation of some statements in Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.”
Full story at Catholic Herald.
Such is the manner of all totalitarian leaders — all. Pope Francis is a Latin American, a “socialist” (or communist), and one that does not brook opposition, even though he promised that he wanted stark exchanges of ideas and challenges. One supposes that there were other political popes in the past, although one is always surprised at the level of mendacity of those around Francis, of their craven cowardice regarding the Faith and their obligations to it.
The Cardinals in the Curia should live in fear right now. They have performed their duties in a very inept manner. I am very pleased that Pope Francis has them standing on their toes. Most of them live a very “cush” life…expensive clothes, big cars, big apartments and lavish meals! They need to get to know the “sheep” better…the common Catholics who don’t share their lot.
More importantly they have failed in preaching the faith or making converts, some watched the Church dissolve right before their eyes, ie Danneels of Beligium and a host of German clerics.
Bohdmond is right as usual.
This summer I had occasion to visit Belgium. The Church is a shell in this once most-Catholic land, native country of Fr. Damien de Veuster & S. John Berchmans. In the country, the Catholic Faith survives, and I saw many Marian wayside shrines which are lovingly maintained .
But the clergy abuse scandal, which has direct personal connections in the notorious Bp. Vangheluwe case to Danneels, as well as the moral failure of priestly discipline under Danneels’ leadership, has been seismic. Mass attendance among Catholics as a result is down to about 5%.
(Where is jon to explain to us that this is (a) all good news and evidence of Vatican II renewal or (b) caused by the SSPX?)
Most of those Fred refers to as living a “cush” lifestyle — such as Card. Marx and Kasper, for example, but also many of PF’s own personal Curial appointees — are those who jumped on the Bergoglio bark, much to their advantage.