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Cardinal Muller to Be Dismissed?

By Jacquelin Magnay
Weekend Australian
July 1, 2017

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/cardinal-mueller-to-be-dismissed

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller speaks at the presentation of the document "Iuvenescit Ecclesia" in the Vatican Press Office, June 14, 2016. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Reports say prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will not have his five year mandate renewed on Sunday.

Three Vatican sources, including one close to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, have told the Register this evening that Cardinal Gerhard Muller is to be imminently dismissed as prefect of the dicastery, although the Vatican itself has not officially confirmed the news.

If true, an announcement is likely this weekend or on Monday.

The Italian Catholic website Corrispondenza Romana and the Rorate Caeli blog were the first to break the news, with Corrispondenza Romana sending out an email this evening with the definitive message: “His Eminence Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from July 2, 2012, has been fired by Pope Francis on the exact date that his 5-year mandate expires.”

It went on to note that Cardinal Muller is one of the cardinals who sought to interpret Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family, “according to a hermeneutic of continuity with the Tradition of the Church.” It added that that had made him a critic of the direction taken by the Pope.

Cardinal Muller has had to perform a difficult balancing act as prefect, not least over the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia.

He has always maintained that the most contentious passages, in particular whether it allows Holy Communion for remarried divorcees without an annulment and without a firm purpose of amendment of life, could be read in accordance with the Church’s teaching and Tradition.

But that position became increasingly harder to maintain when it became clear that the Holy Father supported interpretations that did allow Holy Communion for such divorced and remarried couples in certain cases — a position critics have said is not in conformity with past papal teaching (in a leaked letter, later authenticated by the Vatican, the Pope told Argentine bishops there were “no other interpretations” of the document).

In February, Cardinal Muller warned bishops to stop interpreting Amoris Laetitia in ways that contradicted unchangeable Church doctrine. His comments came after bishops’ conferences such as Germany’s said it allows Holy Communion for some remarried divorcees living in what the Church has always taught is an objective state of adultery, while others such as Poland’s emphatically said it doesn’t. Individual bishops around the world have similarly been at odds over the issue.

Cardinal Muller backed the four cardinals who sent the Pope five dubia in an effort to seek clarification of Francis’ position on this and other disputed passages in Amoris Laetitia, saying they had every right to ask such questions. However, he was opposed to the initiative being made public, and also thought a “fraternal correction” of the Pope was “not possible at this time” because the document posed “no danger to the faith.”

News of the German cardinal’s possible departure also comes at a time when the CDF has been increasingly isolated during this pontificate on doctrinal matters. In February, it emerged that despite lodging a large number of corrections of Amoris Laetitia before its publication last April, none was accepted.

Speculation will now arise over who is likely to replace Cardinal Muller, and what his next appointment might be. Aged 69, he is 6 years short of the normal retiring age of bishops.

Candidates mentioned as Cardinal Muller’s possible successor include Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer S.J., Secretary to the CDF, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, and Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto who also served as special secretary to the Synod on the Family.

 

 

 

 

 




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