(ITALY)
The Tablet [Market Harborough, England]
October 27, 2021
By James Roberts
Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said the Holy See must intervene in the German synodal process to point out the distinction between the Catholic faith and some of the heretical ideas that are being promulgated in the country.
In particular, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pointed out that the “blessing of God is for matrimony between a man and a woman”. In Germany many priests have blessed same-sex unions.
Müller was speaking with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s The World Over on 21 October. With regard to the abuse crisis in the Church, he said the crisis had its origin in a failure on the part of individual priests to obey the Commandments, and was not a crisis of the priesthood per se.
With regard to the Pope’s description, in his 16 October video message to the World Meeting of Popular Movements, of the protesters over the killing of George Floyd as a “collective Samaritan”, Cardinal Müller said that while it was essential to insist that every human being was equal before God “you cannot instrumentalise love [of neighbour] for political gains or destroy the life of others”.
On Francis’ 9 October meeting with Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, he said he hoped the Pope told her “to her face” that “you as a Catholic can in no way project abortion as a human right”.
Meanwhile writing in First Things on 21 October, Charles Chaput, the archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, was critical of Pope Francis for his “sensitivity” to criticism from a media outlet understood to be EWTN. Speaking to Jesuits during his visit to Slovakia on 12 September, Francis said “there is a large Catholic television channel that has no hesitation in continually speaking ill of the pope”.
“It’s surprising to hear any pope be so publicly and personally sensitive to perceived ill will from a few commentators at a modest network (by secular standards),” Chaput said in the article. “Conflict … comes with the job of every bishop. The bishop of Rome is not excused from that unhappy burden.”
Chaput continued: “And EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo… does not pose quite the same fearsome threat to the Church as, say, China’s Xi Jinping, or significant figures in America’s current leadership.”