New interview with Cardinal Müller on the current state of the Church

A female Secretary of State in the Vatican: 'It would be time'.  These are the words of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Benedict XVI, and a leading exponent of the most orthodox wing of the Church, in a long uncensored interview with Vaticanist Franca Giansoldati, from which the book 'In buona fedè (published by Solferino) was born, due out on 27 January.

WOMEN

"Honestly," Müller observes, "I do not believe that the Church is chauvinist, in the etymological sense of the term.  It is one of the many prejudices that circulate.  There are, in fact, no obstacles whatsoever for women to hold prominent academic positions, for example, Professor of Theology in Pontifical Universities.  Just as she could very well aspire to senior roles in the Secretariat of State or elsewhere in the curia.  Of course, to be a professor of theology one needs precise competences".

"Women," says the Cardinal, former Prefect of the former Holy Office, "can occupy all roles in the Church that are not linked to the Sacrament of Orders.  I think it is feasible, for example, to appoint a woman apostolic nuncio, or a woman Secretary of State or even Substitute for General Affairs or even Governor of the Vatican Bank.  Perhaps it would also be time to have a woman Secretary of State or at the top of  the Governorate, since these roles are also open to lay people, without any preclusion.  However, on the priesthood there is an insurmountable barrier, the priesthood can only be a man, just like the cardinalate: for a woman, it cannot be contemplated since at the origin of the College of Cardinals there was a link with the priesthood, so much so that even today every cardinal is associated with a Church of Rome'.

In the future, there seems to be no room for a qualified female presence among the electors called to a conclave to elect the Pope.  Says Cardinal Müller: 'We must start from the roots to understand in which direction we can go.  The Conclave began to take shape when the Church of Rome began to elect its Bishop, the successor of Peter.  It was not an election in the democratic sense but a choice guided by the Holy Spirit.  Later on, boundaries and rules were slowly defined, until we reach today's situation.  We know that in the Middle Ages, but also beyond, there were large noble families who pursued their own policies to influence the choice of the successor.  It was Pope Nicholas II who laid down the first rules for the election and from there the rules were refined to the current constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis. And it was clarified that only the Cardinals of the Roman Church - those incardinated in the titular churches - had the right to vote, precisely to limit chaos and external pressures'.

PAPA EMERITUS

In his forthcoming interview book, the Prefect Emeritus of the former Holy Office hopes that in the future there will be no more Popes Emeritus: "I expect that Benedict XVI's will remain a personal and exceptional case.  I advised Pope Francis at the time against going down the same path, even though he, by his character, always ends up doing the opposite of what he is told.  (Müller laughs heartily.) Pope Francis told me that he too could retire if certain health-related circumstances ever arose, bearing in mind that Benedict XVI opened a precedent, making this possible for others in the future.  But opinion on the papal resignation is a divisive matter.  I recall that Cardinal Maradiaga, Pope Francis's great elector at the Conclave, one day praised Benedict XVI quite a lot for resigning.  It is possible that certain sectors of the Church are waiting for the current Pontiff to renounce the office, hinting at designs of ecclesiastical policy or even to better pilot the next Conclave and identify, who knows, a young candidate close to the reforms that have been initiated in the meantime but the Church cannot act in this way.  Still others are pressing for the study of legislation to regulate the alternations to the throne of Peter before the natural death of the Pontiff.  These are all mechanisms detrimental to the unity of the Church.  Catholics should always accept the elected Pope, whoever he may be".

RULES

For Müller, "no one will ever make a law on resignation stating that the Pope must leave after a certain number of years or, again, that it depends on his conscience.  This is not a personal choice, since it has critical implications for the entire Church, with a billion believers involved worldwide, and over four thousand Bishops.  Clearly one cannot issue directives or commands to the Pontiff but everything should also follow a logic, avoiding proceeding according to the arbitrariness of do-what-I-want.  Here, this does not represent the spirituality of Peter's mission at all'.  The former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does not approve of the changes made to the text of the Our Father where the phrase 'do not lead us into temptation' has been replaced with 'do not abandon us to temptation'.  "To me," he says, "this seems an incomprehensible change.  Do not lead us into temptation' are the words of Jesus in the New Testament and theoretically one could not change that text or refine the Greek version.  This is an incorrect translation, although sometimes it is complicated to translate well and to try to improve on Jesus' words.  We can explain or interpret misunderstandings, we certainly cannot alter the original meaning.  "Lead us not into temptation": in the Bible we have Satan introducing us to temptation and it remains a test that God indulges in to test us, to put us under scrutiny.  The orientation towards sin is an innate drive in man. Whoever changed the text of the prayer was certainly animated by good intentions but the result obtained does not reflect what the original text indicates. Fortunately, the Lord's Prayer was only changed in Italian, not in other languages.  In German, for example, it remained unchanged'.  But why did no collaborator of the Pope warn him in time of this error in the translation of the Our Father into Italian?  "I think," explains Card. Müller - that my successor, Cardinal Ladaria also did so and I know that other people did too, but the category of theologians at this historical juncture does not have much of a chance.  They are kept on the margins'.

LICENSING

Cardinal Müller also talks about when the Pope did not renew his appointment: 'My exit took place in 2017.  It was a thunderbolt.  The day before was 29 June, the Solemn feast of Peter and Paul, and I remember that Pope Francis embraced me on the parvis of the Basilica in front of everyone, at the end of mass, telling me that he had full confidence in me.  He told me just that.  The following day I went to the Apostolic Palace on time for an audience to present him with a series of unfinished business, it was a routine appointment for the Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith.  At the end of the brief interview he said succinctly: 'You have completed your mandate.  Thank you for your work' without giving me any reason, but he did not give one afterwards either.  He merely added that after the summer of that year he would identify some other task for me.  Nothing has happened since then.  I still have that moment in my mind because it was an unexpected moment.

THE BECCIU CASE

The Prefect Emeritus of the former Holy Office also deals without filters with the affair linked to the 'dismissal' of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, defendant in the Vatican trial for the financial scandal linked to the purchase and sale of the Palace of London: "You cannot punish someone without having proof of his guilt. This way of acting has happened frequently in the Vatican and does not only concern the Becciu case uniquely but has even happened within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when some priests were sacked without reason, overnight.  For Cardinal Becciu, the issue is also macroscopic because it was amplified by the media: he was humiliated and punished in front of the world without being given any chance to defend himself.  Now he is waiting for the end of the ongoing trial at the Vatican tribunal.  Yet the presumption of innocence, a sacrosanct right since ancient Roman times, should apply to everyone.  It is not my intention to set up a controversy on this front but it is hard not to be surprised by the way the whole affair has evolved: Francis decided to punish him severely after someone had gone to see him, at Santa Marta, to show him an article from 'L'Espresso' reporting an investigation into the Cardinal. But how can one act on the basis of a press article?   Personally, I am not in favour of civil trials being held in the Vatican, it is better that they be held in Italy, with Italian and European procedures, because the Vatican is not a State like any other, having been set up only to guarantee the independence of the figure of the Pope.  In any case, beyond personal considerations, punishing someone before the verdict denotes the blind power of an absolute monarchy, almost a historical remnant of the Pope-King, even if the Church has freed itself from a piece of the Papal State.  As for the trial on the palace in London, I do not know the precise terms, I hope as much as anyone that light will be shed on it, also because from the accusatory structure it would seem that only officials corrupt to the core dwell in the Vatican. A prejudice that should perhaps be dismantled.  Things are not quite like that.  Of course if there are guilty parties, it is right to punish them but after a proper sentence'.

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