“The task of the dicastery, in the service of the papal magisterium, is to show how the doctrine of the faith is biblically founded, how it has developed in the history of dogma. . . . The Pope and bishops cannot demand obedience for their private opinions, and certainly not for teachings and actions that would contradict revelation and the natural moral law.”
The least we can say is that Cardinal Gerhard Müller has little taste for the positions taken by the new tenant of the Palace of the Holy Office.
It must be said that the Argentine prelate – one of the writers of Amoris laetitia – has never hidden his positions in favor of access to sacramental communion for “divorced and remarried” couples. Without naming him, the former prefect of the DDF indirectly replies that “Jesus himself termed divorce and ‘remarriage’ as adultery in discussions with the hard-hearted Pharisees, who made the argument about the reality of life of their contemporaries and an inability to fulfill God’s commandments” (Mt. 19:9).
For the German high prelate, “the Church does not have the authority to relativize the revealed truths about the unity of marriage (monogamy), its indissolubility, and its fruitfulness (acceptance of children as a gift of God). Good pastoral care is based on good dogmatics, because only a good tree with healthy roots also produces good fruit.”
And when they talked to him about the fact that Archbishop Fernandez has stated that “in many issues I am far more progressive than the pope,” Cardinal Müller does not really mince his words: “Only a fool can speak of a springtime in the Church and a new Pentecost. The praise of the mainstream media for the progressive reformers has not yet been reflected in a turning of people to faith in Jesus Christ,” he said, not without irony.
Referring to the consequences of progressivism in the wake of which the new Prefect of the DDF is enrolled, the cardinal recalls that in “Latin America the Church has lost half of its members. In synodal Germany, more than 500,000 Catholics have publicly renounced their communion with the Church in 2022 alone.”
But Cardinal Müller remains realistic: “Whether my advice is desired by the addressees in question is doubtful.” And it would not be surprising, because, for the record, in 2012 and 2017, Fernandez opposed the German High Prelate who saw him as a “dangerous Sunday theologian” reasoning “politically and not theologically.”
As FSSPX.News has already mentioned, reactions – often negative – to the appointment of Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) are multiplying. Of particular note is that of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who has expressed deep skepticism about his successor.