Cardinal Müller urges Bishop Strickland to stand and fight. Pounds critics who want to harry him out of office. "The Pope has no authority from Christ to bully and intimidate good Bishops"

"...while heretical and immoral bishops can do as they please".

Cardinal Gerhard Müller: “Yes, it is terrible what is being done to Bishop Strickland, an abuse of office against the divine right of the episcopate. If I could advise Bishop Strickland..."

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, responded exclusively to kath.net press inquiries about the events surrounding Bishop Joseph Strickland, Diocese of Tyler (US state of Texas). Background: Bishop Strickland is a doctrinal, popular and scandal-free bishop who is currently rumored to be being forced to resign by Pope Francis (see link).

Yes, what is being done to Bishop Strickland is terrible, an abuse of the divine right of the episcopate.

If I could advise Bishop Strickland, he should definitely not resign because then they can wash their hands of their innocence.

According to the commandment of justice, a bishop can only be deposed by the Pope if he has been guilty of something bad (heresy, schism, apostasy, a crime or totally unpriestly behavior), e.g. the pseudo-pseudo that insults God and cheats people of their salvation -Blessing of people of both or the same sex in extramarital relationships.

Arbitrary removal as Bishop of a diocese in which a bishop is appointed by Christ Himself as its own shepherd undermines the authority of the Pope, as has historically happened with the undignified office haggling under the Avignonese Papacy (This loss of trust was one of the main reasons for the separation of Reformation Christianity from the Catholic Church and its hatred of the Pope, who, with his arbitrary actions, had put himself in God's place).

According to Catholic teaching, the Pope is by no means the Lord of the Church, but rather, as Christ's representative for the universal Church, the first servant of his Lord, who had to say to Simon Peter, who had just been destined to become the rock of the Church: “Get behind me (Italian Indietro, the true indietrismo), because you have in mind not what God wants, but what people want” (Mt 16:23).

The Pope has no authority from Christ to bully and intimidate good Bishops modeled on Christ the Good Shepherd who, in accordance with the episcopal ideal of Vatican II, sanctify, teach and lead the flock of God in the name of Christ, just because they are false friends denounce these good bishops to Francis as enemies of the Pope, while heretical and immoral bishops can do whatever they want or who bother the Church of Christ every day with some other stupidity.

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