I’m not a Catholic, so A, take my synopsis with a grain of salt, and B, expect a real Catholic to correct my post pretty quickly.
From what I’ve gathered, Francis is in the midst of taking the Catholic Church into a sharp left turn. He put out a papal exhortation about family life called The Joy of Love. It contained a footnote that appeared to say the secularly divorced can take communion. That’s a pretty major shift.
Four conservative Cardinals formally asked Francis to clarify his document. He was supposed to give them a respectful, timely and edifying reply, but (figuratively speaking) he gave them the middle finger instead.
Now, as his papal document continues to sow questions and chaos, he’s clearing out other Cardinals who would be considered conservative, and replacing them with comrades—i.e.: Cardinals who approve of his Leftist shift. I gather that Muller was a conservative overall, and he’s been added to the group Francis has sidelined.
For traditional Catholics, this is a crisis. The Pope is supposed to preserve and champion the faith, not remake it in his image. Nerves are understandably on edge.
Those are my impressions, anyway. As I said, look for a real Catholic to set us both straight if necessary.
Sounds good to me. The only thing I'd add is that the word "schism" is being bandied about by people who are NOT prone to hysterics.
Fantasywriter:
I think your analysis was pretty spot on, and done so without unnecessary polemics.
The Pope seems to trying to move the Catholic position on Holy Matrimony closer to what the Eastern Orthodox have. For some Catholics (not saying me) that is tantamount to moving Rome towards the East and Not Orthodoxy towards Rome.
I believe that the normative position should be that those who are civilly remarried and divorce should refrain from Communion. Could there be a chance that a person in such situation could receive Holy Communion, perhaps. Let’s say someone got married out of college, got divorced civilly and remarried in mid 30’s and are now say 70 years old and married to the “2nd spouse”, perhaps in that case yes.
The problem is that this could open the door for people to receive communion who really should not be.
“It contained a footnote that appeared to say the secularly divorced can take communion.”
I think you must mean the secularly remarried. Divorced Catholics can take communion, it’s the remarriage part that the Church doesn’t accept, right?
Freegards
What we are seeing is a struggle between the “liberal” Modernists and “conservative” Modernists. There may be a few stealth Catholics in the hierarchy, but as long as they remain silent they are complicit.