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Reports: Cdl Müller out at the CDF [UPDATED]

June 30, 2017 Catherine Harmon The Dispatch 14 Print

Cardinal Gerhard Muller is pictured in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican in this Nov. 19, 2014, file photo. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Several outlets are reporting today that Pope Francis will not be re-appointing Cardinal Gerhard Müller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when the cardinal’s five-year term is up on July 2.

Edward Pentin, who says he has independently confirmed the report, writes at the National Catholic Register:

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 Müller, 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.”

Cardinal Müller was appointed prefect of the CDF by Pope Benedict XVI after Müller’s predecessor, Cardinal William Levada, reached retirement age. At 69, Müller is still several years shy of the customary retirement age of 75.

On several occasions over the last year, Cardinal Müller has maintained that Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia must be read in continuity with Catholic teaching on the subject of Communion for the divorced and remarried. This stance put him at odds with his fellow German bishops, who announced in February that some divorced and remarried Catholics may receive Communion and cited Amoris Laetitia as support for their position.

Pentin reports that possible replacements for Cardinal Müller include Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, SJ (secretary to the CDF), Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, and Archbishop Bruno Forte (who served as special secretary to the Synod on the Family in 2014). Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who was appointed a member of the CDF in January, is also rumored to be a candidate to replace Müller.

UPDATE (7/1): The Vatican announced this morning that Archbishop Ladaria will replace Cardinal Muller as prefect.

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About Catherine Harmon 577 Articles
Catherine Harmon is managing editor of Catholic World Report.

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Pope Francis: ‘The Church advances through prayer’

May 10, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, May 10, 2020 / 03:30 am (CNA).- Church leaders must put prayer before all other things, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Sunday.

Speaking in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican residence, the pope said May 10 that praying must be a bishop’s first priority.

He said: “The bishop’s prayer, the first task: to pray. And the people, seeing the bishop pray, learn to pray. Because the Holy Spirit teaches us that it is God who ‘does things’.” 

“We do a little, but it is He who ‘does the things’ of the Church, and it is through prayer that the Church advances. And that is why the leaders of the Church, so to say, the bishops, must go ahead with prayer.”

In his homily, the pope reflected on Sunday’s Gospel reading, John 14:1-14, in which Jesus tells his disciples that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through him.

He described the passage as Jesus’ “declaration of access to the Father.” It was, he suggested, as if Christ “opened the doors of the omnipotence of prayer.”

Believers should pray with trust and courage, he said. He gave the examples of Abraham “haggling” with God to save Sodom in Genesis 18:20-33, and Moses asking the Lord to spare his people in Exodus 32:1-35. Therefore Christians should not pray timidly.

“To pray is to go with Jesus to the Father who will give you everything,” he said. “Courage in prayer, frankness in prayer.” 

The pope then turned to the day’s second reading, Acts 6:1-7, in which the apostles respond to complaints about food distribution in the early Christian community. 

He noted that, in order to focus on prayer and preaching, the apostles “enlightened by the Holy Spirit, ‘invented’, so to speak, the deacons,” selecting seven men of good reputation to oversee food allocation.

He said: “This is the bishop’s task: to pray and preach. With this strength that we have heard in the Gospel: the bishop is the first one who goes to the Father, with the trust that Jesus gave, with courage, with parrhesia [bold speech], to fight for his people. The first task of a bishop is to pray.”

The pope recalled “a holy parish priest” who whenever he met a bishop would ask him how many hours a day he prayed. 

Prayer is a bishop’s primary task, he said, “Because it is the prayer of the head of the community for the community, the intercession to the Father so that he might guard the people.”

He concluded: “It is sad to see good bishops, good people, good people, but busy with many things, the economy, and this and that… Prayer in first place. Then the other things. But when the other things take space away from prayer, something doesn’t work…”

“This is how the Church goes forward, with prayer, the courage of prayer, because the Church knows that without this access to the Father she cannot survive.”

The pope ended the celebration with adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, the pope recalled two recent commemorations. May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. May 9 was the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, which proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, leading to the foundation of the European Union.

He said: “Let us ask the Lord for Europe today to grow united in this unity of brotherhood which makes all peoples grow in unity in diversity.”

[…]

13 Comments

  2. The writing was not only on the wall it was emblazoned across the media by his being rendered impotent by the Pontiff. Beginning with the Pontiff’s dismissal of Cdl Mueller’s trusted, orthodox Staff, muzzling him. The idea that AL must be read in continuity with tradition is counter to the Pontiff’s purpose in AL and ongoing implementation by a nod and wink to the German and other Bishops Conferences. He’s a good man. I regret he didn’t stand up directly to the Pontiff and get fired with not only honor. But with the courage to set an example for the Church.

    Reply

  3. Well, well..,all of you die-hard Francis defenders have what to say???

    The Holy Spirit and the Deposit of Faith…we will soon see if the Catholic Church is the true Church.

    Reply

    • The Deposit of the Faith has not been abrogated and never will be. Our Catholic Faith is assured by Christ’s words. The Pontiff has not officially touched or changed one word. Devious covert implementation of any policy contrary to that Deposit is manifest error, non binding, absolutely necessary to reject. Which it will be by the Faithful. With Christ we may suffer awhile. With him steadfast in the Catholic Faith we will rise to eternal life.

      Reply

  4. Bruno Forte would be bad as the head of the CDF; I don’t know anything about Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, SJ. O’Malley didn’t impress me as the Archbishop of Boston and I have no reason to think that he will act as the voice that Pope Francis needs.

    Reply

  5. Pope Francis and any further perversions of pastoral teaching (for example, anything that may result from the rumored commission on Humanae Vitae) are a problem for Latin Catholics only if they hold to a strong ultramontanist view of the papacy.

    Reply

  6. Francis-Kirk is fake Catholicism.

    Francis hires people like James Martin to teach immorality to our children, while F confection the facade of “orthodoxy.”

    Double-talking and dog-whistling all day, every day.

    An unworthy shepherd.

    I wouldn’t leave my children alone in a room with him or any man who he appoints – they are not trustworthy.

    Reply

  7. Cardinal Mueller is a great man, who stood by the faith when the Pope undermined him at every turn. He tried to correct Amoris Laetitia, but the Pope rejected his counsel. He tried to save AL from itself, but the Pope rejected him. His job was not to stand up and oppose the Pope publicly, as some contend. His job was to try and steer a dangerous Pope in the right direction, without undermining the Papacy itself. Now Mueller will be free to speak out more clearly.

    Two very troubling items – Many have said that the Pope was out to undermine the legacy and magisterium of JP II. Now we hear that he is removing JP II’s name from the John Paul II Institute for the Family. If true, this is a heinous act of a very tiny man. It is perhaps conclusive evidence of an irrational dislike for JP II and his thought. It shows a pettiness and arrogance that many have seen in this man.

    Second, Archbishop Paglia recently told the parents of a severely disabled and dying baby to essentially forget about it and let their baby die. They had raised 1.4 million dollars to take their baby to America to try one last treatment as a last ditch attempt to save his life. Not only would the vaunted British healthcare system not pay for it, they refused to let the parents take their baby to America to even try to treat the baby. This is heartlessness in spades. Paglia cynically quoted JP II out of context, and claimed that the parents should let their baby die rather than try one last treatment. This is evidence of extreme sickness in the Vatican. The whole Vatican seems to be rejecting Catholicism.

    Reply

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