October 28, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In light of the recent and controversial words by Pope Francis endorsing civil unions for same-sex couples, Cardinal Gerhard Müller explained in a new interview today in Italy the nature of the papacy and the limits of its authority. He insisted that the Pope has to serve God and His teaching, adding that there are moments where Catholics “have to criticize many ideas and actions of individual Popes.” Such questioning, however, does not lead to “questioning the divine mission and mandate of the Pope as Successor of Peter,” the Cardinal explained.
His words can be helpful for many Catholics who are facing the situation that they have to contradict their own Pope.
Speaking with the Italian newspaper La Verità, about the recent papal words about same-sex civil unions, Cardinal Müller pointed out that these “private pastoral musings” of the Pope are “not a locus theologicus” and have “no authority for a Catholic Christian.”
“The Faith stems from God's Revelation and not from the manipulative wording and framing presented by theological and political influencers,” the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated.
He also insisted that “marriage is a life-long union between a man and a woman,” adding that “any sexual union outside of marriage is objectively a grave sin.”
In a new documentary film that premiered in Italy on 21 October, Pope Francis called for homosexual civil unions to be legalized. Speaking of homosexual civil unions, he said, “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
Further commenting on these words coming from a Pope, Cardinal Müller points out that the papal limits have been defined by the Council of Florence, as well as the First and the Second Vatican Council, and that “the authority of the papal teaching and governing office is not based on the limited personality of any occupier of the Throne of Peter.”
Remarks attributed to Pope Francis (and, not denied by the Vatican) in support of homosexual civil unions have caused grave scandal to the faithful.
Please SIGN this urgent petition which asks Pope Francis to clarify and rectify these heterodox and scandalous remarks on homosexual civil unions, and which will be delivered both to the Vatican and to the Papal Nuncio of the United States (the Pope's official representative in the U.S.).
As the last guarantor of the Faith, the Pope should clarify and rectify these remarks, which go against the perennial teaching of the Church, even including the teaching of his living predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
"What we have to create is a law of civil coexistence [meaning civil union law, for homosexuals]...," Pope Francis is reported to have remarked, in what is arguably his clearest statement of public support for a practice morally prohibited by official Catholic Church teaching.
In fact, the Church has been crystal clear in Her opposition to homosexual unions.
Just in 2003, Pope Saint John Paul II approved a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, titled 'Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons' and written by Cardinal Ratzinger (now, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), which concludes with the following:
"The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself."
It could not be more clear: the Church is calling people to repentance, not to be left to indulge in grave sin.
Since becoming public, several senior prelates as well as other notable Catholic figures have voiced their opposition to these remarks attributed to the Pontiff.
Cardinal Raymond Burke stated: "It is a source of deepest sadness and pressing pastoral concern that the private opinions reported with so much emphasis by the press and attributed to Pope Francis do not correspond to the constant teaching of the Church, as it is expressed in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition."
Cardinal Gerhard Müller commented: "Where there is tension between the plain and obvious Word of God and the infallible interpretation on the one hand, and private expressions of opinion even by the highest church authorities on the other, the principle always applies: in dubio pro DEO [When in doubt, be in favor of God]."
And, Catholic theologian and apologist Scott Hahn, without directly quoting Pope Francis, shared on Facebook the 'Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,' published by the CDF in 1986, with the statement: "Holy Father, respectfully and humbly, I beg to differ... if that is indeed what you said. In any case, please clarify and rectify your statement, especially in view of the official teaching of our Lord through the magisterium of His Church."
But, the silence from the Vatican has been deafening, with no clarification forthcoming.
We must, therefore, ask the Pope for clarification in this serious matter.
Please SIGN and SHARE this petition which asks Pope Francis to clarify and rectify remarks attributed to him in support of homosexual civil unions.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Cdl. Burke: Pope’s homosexual civil union remarks ‘contrary’ to Scripture, Tradition' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/cardinal-burke-on-popes-homosexual-civil-union-remarks-contrary-to-the-teaching-of-sacred-scripture-and-sacred-tradition
'Cardinal says Catholics ‘can and should’ disagree with Pope’s ‘opinion’ on gay civil unions' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/cdl.mueller-popes-words-on-gay-civil-unions-purely-private-expression-of-opinion-which-every-catholic-can-and-should-freely-contradict
'Archbishop Vigano, Bishops Tobin and Strickland respond to Pope’s approval of homosexual civil unions' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/archbishop-vigano-and-bishops-tobin-strickland-respond-to-popes-approval-of-homosexual-civil-unions
'Pope’s comments on gay civil unions cause shockwaves around the world' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/deepest-sadness-cardinal-burke-condemns-pope-franciss-remarks-supporting-civil-unions
Starting with Peter, the prelate explained, the authority of the Pope is based on the “divine mission.” “His authority which calls for the religious obedience of all Catholics,” Müller went on to say, “is merely to profess that which was revealed to him by the heavenly Father: namely, that Jesus is not just some kind of prophet or moral model, but, rather, the Son of God (Mt 16:16),” that is, “the Son of the Most Holy Trinity, Who has revealed to us His Father (Mt 11:27) and to Whom – as the Son – all power in heaven and on earth is given.”
“The Apostles and their successors,” Cardinal Müller continued, “only teach that which has been given to them by Jesus.”
In this sense, religious obedience is here a part “of the supernatural Faith, which is directly aimed at God who does not and cannot deceive.” Such teaching excludes then a “blind obedience toward man, as it is known in totalitarian systems and their personality cult of their leaders.”
When asked by La Verità about the fact that with his new statement, the Pope actually contradicts a magisterial text issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2003 which ruled that the Church cannot recognize civil unions of same-sex couples, the German prelate explained:
First of all, the Pope has to be in accordance with the Revelation, as it is to be found and witnessed in Holy Scripture and in the Apostolic Tradition. Then he also has to recognize all dogmatic decisions of the previous councils and popes. Neither the current Pope nor his predecessors can impose their own subjective beliefs (on world politics, the education of children, or the art of cooking) upon the entire Church.
Cardinal Müller made it clear that “one can and must criticize many ideas and actions of individual popes without questioning the mission and mandate of the pope as the Successor of St. Peter.” Even though Jesus made St Peter the first pope, but at the same time Jesus also “heavily criticized” him, especially for denying Christ during His Passion.
Therefore, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, as well as St. Thomas all praised St. Paul for his courage, for “his most fervent criticism of Peter,” and at the same time praised St. Peter for his “humility, with which he accepted this fraternal correction.” At the time, continued the German cardinal, “St. Peter did an immeasurable service for the unity of the Church.”
Müller presented this situation between St. Peter and St. Paul – where St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face – as a model for our Church also today: “The exercise of the primacy of the Roman Church has always to be guided by the two Apostle princes who with their blood of martyrdom have bought for the Church of Rome the primacy in the communion with the episcopal local churches.”
Here, Cardinal Müller also insisted that there were moments in the history of the Church where popes have erred in the past. “It happened historically that even individual popes were insecure with regard to questions of the Faith or even gravely erred.”
Here, the German cardinal reminded us of the very limited nature of the dogma of papal infallibility. The latter only takes effect when a pope speaks “ex cathedra” and presents to the entire Church “a revealed doctrine of the Faith.” Thus, a pope cannot “impose” his “subjective values and limited philosophical and theological theories” upon the Church, as if they were “revealed.”
Any new concept of revelation, according to which new inspirations could lead a pope to transcend that which has always been taught by the Catholic Church, is clearly being criticized by the prelate.
Here, the Cardinal rejects any theory, according to which there exists an ongoing revelation and that Pope Francis is now divinely inspired in his new ideas.
“Revelation has definitively ended in its constitutive reality with the death of the last Apostle,” Müller insisted. “Popes and bishops are merely servants of Christ and witnesses to the once and for all occurred Revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and not the recipients of a new revelation which surpasses Christ or even reduces him to a preliminary stage to a higher knowledge of God.”
Any “pseudo-intellectual talks of a paradigm shift” is here clearly assessed as being “an undisguised heresy which falsifies the Word of God and which turns the wine of the Marriage Feast of Cana back into water.”
In this sense, there is no way of “absolutizing the ecclesial-political power of the Pope and of his mission,” and, therefore, as Cardinal Müller stated, “we justly defend the authentic teaching on the papacy toward those Catholics” who do so.
