VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, joined other prelates, including Cardinals Raymond Burke and Giovanni Becciu, in St. Peter’s Square to pray the Rosary for hospitalized Pope Francis, who may be nearing death.
In an interview conducted by the German Catholic news service kath.net and translated with the aid of Google Translate, Cardinal Müller said that the moment the Church now finds herself in – facing the prospect that the Pope may soon die – is “not about power games, self-recommendations and candidate races.” It’s “about reflecting on the essence of Peter’s service, which Christ gave to His Church.”
“The unity of the Church lies in the revealed truth and must not be damaged in political-ideological (conservative/progressive) trench warfare,” said the cardinal, who cited St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians: “It has been reported to me that there is strife and contention among you: I mean that each of you says something different: I stand with Paul; I with Apollos; I with Cephas/Peter; I with Christ: Is Christ then divided?” (1 Cor 1:11f).
Cautioning Catholics to view the moment not through a “worldly” or secular political lens but through a spiritual perspective, Cardinal Müller urged:
Let’s not keep our fingers crossed for one of our favorite candidates (as in a competition for a fleeting prize) and let’s not make personnel policies based on the horoscopes of journalists and completely unchurched politicians who see the Vatican as just a power factor on the world political stage.
Rather, let us pray that the Lord would give His Church good shepherds after the Heart of Jesus and, in particular, that He would direct the thoughts of the cardinals towards the good of the Church and make them immune to thinking in purely worldly terms.
Cardinal Müller reiterated that it is important to think “not in terms of human power,” but “spiritually and theologically about the universal pastoral office that Jesus gave to St. Peter and his successors.”
Speaking of last night’s public Rosary gathering in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, “The prayer of the Rosary introduces us to the mysteries of the life of Jesus, our Savior, the only Mediator between God and humanity.”
For Christians, “illness and death are not the ultimate catastrophe as they are for the nihilists and skeptics, the materialists and atheists who have no hope.”
When asked if he is worried about the Pope, Cardinal Müller explained how prayers for a sick young person and that of the old and infirm might differ. While people naturally pray for the physical recovery of the young, for those advanced in age and nearing death, the focus is almost entirely on the person’s eternal salvation.
Cardinal Müller quoted Psalm 90:10, “Man’s life lasts 70 to 80 years,” and Hebrews 9:27, “It is destined for man to die once, after which judgment will follow.”
So “for a person of advanced age, this is the focus of our prayer, in which the saints of heaven and the believers of the Church still on pilgrimage on earth unite with Christ, their head, Who stands before God ‘as our helper with the Father.'”