German prelate Cardinal Gerhard Cardinal Müller has emerged as a leading figure in the orthodox camp of the Catholic Church over the past few years and has established himself a counterweight to the prevailing liberal trends. Back in early September, Müller expressed dismay at the Vatican’s silence on China’s abuses and Cardinal Joseph Zen’s then-imminent “unfair” trial.
Speaking with Il Messengero at the time, the former Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said that, during a recent consistory, not even the Pope mentioned Zen, with “no solidarity document, no prayer initiative for” the Hong Kong cleric. Echoing Zen’s own fears, Müller said he believed the deal the Vatican inked with China undermines the possibility of support for Zen, warning the deal “does not serve the interests of the Holy See”.
Such language is a strong enough rebuke, but the German prelate followed it up with even less compromising language in another interview later in September, where he said the Pope has no authority to challenge the teaching of the Church. In that interview, with Infovaticana, when asked again about the consistory, Müller said “there was no opportunity to discuss the burning issues, for example, about the frontal attack on the Christian image of man by the ideologies of posthumanism and gender madness or about the crisis of the Church in Europe”. Müller went on to say “the view that everything popes have said or done in the course of Church history is either dogma or law” in fact “contradicts the entire Catholic tradition, and especially Vatican II”.
Even more recently, as Gavin Ashenden covered in the Catholic Herald, Müller has been warning about a hostile takeover of the Church thanks to the synodal process. Speaking on EWTN with Raymond Arroyo in early October, Müller said of the Synod on Synodality – a centrepiece of Pope Francis’s papacy, but a process criticised for overrepresenting liberals while underrepresenting mainstream Catholics – “I think the approach is wrong”.
This is the kind of language that not only challenges Francis but also the Maltese prelate, Cardinal Mario Grech, a major prominent of the synodal process. The Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops even went as far as saying the synodal process is a “mature fruit of Vatican II”. Therefore, Müller is perhaps offering a counterweight to Francis, as well as Francis’ allies such as Grech and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a leading figure in the Vatican’s deal with China.
When EWTN asked the German prelate about Grech’s liberal words, he said: “That is a hermeneutic of the old cultural Protestantism”, before adding “how is it possible that Cardinal Grech is more intelligent than Jesus Christ, where he takes his authority to relativize, to subvert of God?” Müller even warned a successful synodal process “will be the end of the Catholic Church.”
When asked about Grech’s words on the synod and Vatican II, Müller replied: “I am wondering that, as Cardinal Grech here presents himself as a super authority, he is not a recognized theologian, he has no importance in the academic theology, and how he is presenting a new hermeneutic of the Catholic faith only because he is the Secretary of the Synod, which has no authority about the doctrine of the Church; and all these Synods of Bishops and the process has no authority, in no way an magisterial authority.”
In the Infovaticana interview, Müller had said of the Synodal Path in his own country, “one would not know exactly whether to speak of tragedy or comedy with respect to this event”. He argued that “the texts, very abundant but not very deep, do not deal with the renewal of Catholics in Christ, but with a surrender to a world without God”. The ongoing theme of sexuality “is not understood as the gift of God granted to human beings as created persons”, and instead “as a kind of drug to numb the basic nihilistic feeling with the maximum satisfaction of pleasure.”
On the prospect of schism caused by the German Church, Müller argued: “In their blind arrogance, they do not think of division, but of taking over the universal Church. Germany is too small for them to exercise their governing ideology.”
Again and again, Müller has sought to correct the Pontiff, as well as key Francis allies such as Grech and Parolin. Müller is now a leading orthodox voice in the Church, and one making his opinions known. For his part, Pope Francis recently announced the Synod of Bishops’ meeting will be extended to 2023 and 2024. This could indicate both that Francis is here to stay for now, despite warnings of imminent resignation, but also that any reforms are set to deepen.
To what extent the cardinals accept such reforms may colour which way they go when it comes to picking a future pontiff. As so many cardinals were picked by Francis it is hard not to see a widespread endorsement of the synodal process. Still, voices like that of Müller are growing louder. Emerging as a leader of the orthodox wing, Müller could be the man to watch in the next few years.
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