Cardinal Müller attacked as ecclesiastical narcissist with distorted judgment by eminent canon lawyer who defends the regime of the "Dictator" Pope

Disoriented Eminence? Cardinal Müller's criticism of the Pope in criticism

Norbert Lüdecke on retired Bishops and Papal Primacy

Norbert Lüdecke held the chair for canon law at the University of Bonn from 1998. He has been retired since 2022.

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller speaks with Pope Francis

Cardinal Müller is not happy about the Pope. The former prefect of the faith criticizes that Francis has a wrong understanding of the Papal and Episcopal office. The canon lawyer Norbert Lüdecke disagrees: The Pope can do whatever he wants - and no cardinal is his controller.

Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller, who lives in Rome and is currently a member of the World Synod of Bishops, gave an interview to the Rheinische Post at the beginning of October. According to his impression, there is an increased "disorientation" and certain heretical, i.e. erroneous, positions in the church in Germany. Coming from this Cardinal, such assessments are not surprising. One becomes suspicious, especially as a canon lawyer, elsewhere, namely where Müller criticizes how the Pope deals with Archbishops Gänswein and Woelki. The first deserved a worthy task, the other deserved no investigation because he was simply blameless.

Müller sees a false understanding of the Episcopal and Papal office at work: a pope “cannot do everything that suits his personal taste.” Bishops would be called by Christ and not appointed like ministers. The Pope actually only recognizes the selection of committees - in the local church and the Congregation of Bishops - according to a certain procedure. He also could not arbitrarily remove or transfer a bishop; that would be an “authoritarian misunderstanding” of the papacy. These are passages that astonish canon lawyers - not only in terms of content, but also in view of the blatant public accusation against Pope Francis by a cardinal who is obliged to obey him in a very special way. But one after anonther.

Ordination is a status, not an office

First of all, a small but very important and helpful distinction to the term office: Müller uses it, as is unfortunately common in church and dogmatics, not only for specific church offices, but also for ordination, in this case the episcopate. Now, with consecration, a man enters a state, but does not yet have an office with any jurisdictional powers. Gänswein and Woelki both belong to the episcopate, but only the latter currently holds church offices, specifically the offices of Archbishop of Cologne and Metropolitan of the Cologne Ecclesiastical Province. Gänswein, on the other hand - to his and others' chagrin - is currently no longer in office. Like titular bishops, he is generally a bishop for special use (zbV), although currently without one.

Anyone who is ordained as a priest does not yet have an office, but is only given one after the ordination. The fact that in church and theology people still like to talk about the priesthood or generally about the spiritual office in contrast to the laity is probably because this makes the hierarchical difference clearer, because "office" is more likely to be associated with positional priority and concrete power. Cardinal Meisner, for example, always insisted on talking about candidates for the priesthood, rather than, more accurately, about candidates for the priesthood. This allows the candidates to gain an understanding of their later "set-above existence" as clerics during their formatting.

Now to the Pope and bishops: The jurisdictional primacy of the Pope, taught by both Vatican Councils, is also implemented in current canon law for the appointment of bishops. The Pope alone and sovereignly decides whether a priest is actually called by Christ to be a bishop. Therefore, anyone who administers or receives episcopal ordination without his permission incurs excommunication. Of course, he alone decides whether the Pope makes a validly and lawfully ordained bishop a diocesan bishop after the consecration. People or (very rarely) committees of the local churches and always curial authorities may be involved in the selection of suitable candidates, but the transfer of office is and remains a sovereign primacial act. The same applies to the assessment and decision as to whether a bishop should accept something that has been given to him by the Pope should remain in office.

The Pope decides as he sees fit

To take it away from him, the Pope can use rudimentary procedural rules, but he doesn't have to. Because as dominus canonum he is not bound by his own laws. And contrary to what Cardinal Müller claims, according to the dogma of the First Vatican Council, the Pope's full and supreme leadership and disciplinary power also extends to each and every pastor throughout the world. According to the explanatory preface to the Church Constitution of Vatican II, the Pope, as the highest pastor of the Church, can exercise his official authority at any time "as he sees fit" (ad placitum). Diocesan bishops remain completely at the discretion of the Pope in terms of maintaining or retaining their office: He can give or take as he thinks best serves the well-being of the Church. Against this background, anyone who as a bishop understands "the ecclesiological dimension" of his status or office in such a way that the Pope only appears as the initialing uncle of the Curia seems to be succumbing to a grossly inflated self-image.

What the Pope writes, what the Pope signs, he alone decides. He is not an “initial uncle” of the Curia.

Such an understanding is all the more surprising for an ex-diocesan bishop and cardinal. Before taking over the office of diocesan bishop of Regensburg, which he received from Pope John Paul II, Müller not only swore "everlasting loyalty" to each pope, but also swore "to be compliant and committed to the free exercise of the pope's primate power in the entire church." to "promote and defend one's rights and authority" (Bishops' Oath of Allegiance). And as a "creature of the Pope", on the occasion of his creation as a cardinal through the Pope's free decision, he once again promised under oath to this and all legitimate successors "from now on and forever, as long as I live..., to practice permanent obedience" (Oath of Allegiance of the Pope). cardinals). Only then did he kneel and receive the Red Biretta from the Pope.

Cardinals are special helpers of the Pope, not his co-regents or even public controllers of his administration. Of course, it is one thing to lecture about the supreme power of the Pope or to have it behind you as the prefect of an authority than to be affected by it in a limiting way, like Cardinal Müller, who, without giving a reason (to which no believer has a claim) was dismissed as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2017. Anyone who does not perceive this as a fundamental Catholic exercise in humility, but rather as a narcissistic insult and feels surrounded by rumors of heresy even without their previous office, can sometimes have their perception and judgment clouded in other ways - in other words, become disoriented.

Source

Cathcon:  This from a canon lawyer who has made his career out of attacking Vatican I, "Lüdecke's theses include the fact that the hierarchical and centralist image of the Church cemented by the First Vatican Council (1869/70) was not overcome by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)."  (Wikipedia).  He should read the documents more carefully.