Posted on 01/17/2020 7:55:19 AM PST by ebb tide
ROME, January 17, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Benedict XVI said he could not remain silent in his new book because he sees the voices of those who wish to abolish priestly celibacy as a “great danger” for the Church, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said.
In a recent interview with Corriere della Sera, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) added that while “some are putting pressure on Francis,” the “contribution” of Benedict’s new book with Cardinal Sarah is “a help to the Pope.”
The new volume, titled From the Depths of Our Hearts, “has a theological and ecclesiastical value greater than that of many other bishops and theologians,” Cardinal Müller said.
The cardinal’s comments were given to Corriere but were edited out of the printed edition for reasons of length. The cardinal, however, provided LifeSiteNews with the full text.
Elaborating on the “danger” Benedict sees, the cardinal pointed to forces within the Church that are ready to use the Amazon Synod to weaken the Catholic priesthood.
“The Synod discussed the possibility of ordaining married men, but the Amazonian bishops represent only a small part of the world episcopate,” the cardinal told Corriere. “The Catholic priesthood is at stake here. Some, as in Germany, are beginning to say: why not elsewhere? If you destroy a principle, then everything falls.”
This principle, he said, is the truth of the Catholic priesthood.
“We Catholics are not like Protestants who see the ministry only as a function in the Church. Priests for us are representatives of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd and High Priest,” he explained.
Cardinal Müller was appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI and is the editor of Joseph Ratzinger’s opera omnia. In July 2017, Pope Francis replaced the 72-year-old German prelate with Spanish Jesuit theologian Luis Ladaria as prefect of the CDF.
In his interview with Corriere, Cardinal Müller made clear he has no concerns about the new book causing any “confusion between the magisteriums” of Francis and the Pope emeritus.
“We don’t have two popes, there is only one pope, Francis,” he said. “We say ‘pope emeritus’ as a form of courtesy,” but “in reality, Benedict XVI is a bishop emeritus.”
The cardinal said that those who see the new book by Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah as a “sort of interference” forget that while the Roman Pontiff is the “principle of unity in the Church … all bishops, even emeriti, participate as such in the Magisterium of the Church together have the responsibility for the depositum fidei.”
Pressed on two common issues posed by those who advocate a relaxing of celibacy in the Latin Rite — i.e. married priests in the Eastern Churches and the ordination of former Anglican clergy — Cardinal Müller stressed “they are exceptions, in the name of the superior value of the unity of the Church.” But he added: “it does not mean abolishing the principle.”
In 1980, Pope John Paul II authorized what is called the “Pastoral Provision,” enabling bishops to ordain former Anglican clergy as diocesan priests, once they received a dispensation from the Holy See regarding celibacy. In his 2009 apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum caetibus, Pope Benedict XVI authorized a similar provision within a new Anglican Ordinariate that he established with this document.
When asked how he explains the storm of controversy surrounding Benedict XVI’s new book with Cardinal Sarah, Cardinal Müller pointed to rampant “opportunism.”
“When Ratzinger was Pope,” the cardinal observed, “many people came to visit him and they adored him. Now they don’t visit him, they don’t listen to him, they even manage to slow down the publication of his works in Italian.”
“The opportunists are always the greatest enemies of the credibility of the Church,” he said.
Ping
1 corinthians 9:5
“Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?”
I never understood why priests had to be celibate in the first place.
A family man with wife and children could be a great priest - having children is an experience you cannot understand until you have some.
“Have we not power to carry about a WOMAN, A SISTER, as well as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” 1 Corinthians 9:5 D-R Bible
“[5] “A woman, a sister”: Some erroneous translators have corrupted this text by rendering it, a sister, a wife: whereas, it is certain, St. Paul had no wife (chap. 7 ver. 7, 8) and that he only speaks of such devout women, as, according to the custom of the Jewish nation, waited upon the preachers of the gospel, and supplied them with necessaries.” - D-R Bible Commentary
Assuming for a moment Paul was speaking about a wife...
“...Nevertheless, we have not used this power: but we bear all things, lest we should give any hindrance to the gospel of Christ.” 1 Corrinthians 9:12
So, y’all really think early Christians approved of church leaders being accompanied on sometimes long journeys by women who were not their wives or whose husbands were not present?
Really?
What about ideas like not giving unbelievers material to slander the way by gossip and muckraking?
I recommend you read Benedict's/Sarah's book. Maybe then you'll understand.
Since when has the Church been a democracy? That's how we got the protestant churches.
No, the Protestant movement started because the RCC had gone off the rails.
Like the protestants marrying homos, approving abortion, female “priests”, etc.?
Thus...
“...Nevertheless, we have not used this power: but we bear all things, lest we should give any hindrance to the gospel of Christ.” 1 Corrinthians 9:12
People have departed from the knowledge of the Lord and been turned over to reprobate minds ... which is why I say that the sign that is being given to this generation is the sign of Romans 1:18-32.
You may note that the Lavender Mafia is very active in the RCC. Poofters are invading everywhere they are ever unwisely tolerated.
Flagrantly unconverted pew warmers took time to become a thing. And where they controlled their own property some more time after that to start basically showing actual believers the door.
But as for the beginning of Protestantism, do you really imagine they were letting poofters shack up and call it marriage? Etc? Really?
Sounds hypocritical, coming from a protestant, some of whose churches perform homosexual weddings, approve abortions, ordain openly open lesbian “priests”, “bishops”, etc.
Why don’t you try getting your own houses in order first?
It may be that, Pope Benedict XVI intentionally botched his resignation, so that he could catch people on record being unfaithful to the Church, Scripture and/or Tradition (some have hinted at this.) Then at a later date would come out and oops I am still Pope, oh and by the way all y’all are excommunicated. In other words Pope Benedict is playing 3d chess. IDK
The latin used in his resignation is so bad that it could not possibly have been written by Pope Benedict, not to mention the use of improper terminology.
Ah, I see, you have a simplistic view that somehow lumps all Protestants together.
Do you likewise hold the whole RCC responsible for the Lavender Mafia it hasn’t stamped out?
I don’t.
I doubt you do either.
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