BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

IMPORTANT UPDATE
Dean of Rota did not say Pope could strip
Four Cardinals of Cardinalate because of Five Dubia
by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

December 1, 2016

This we now read at Religion Confidencial:

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Religión Confidencial publicó el martes una noticia que ponía en boca de monseñor Pio Vito Pinto, decano de la Rota Romana, la afirmación de que los cuatro cardenales que han escrito al Papa “podrían perder el cardenalato”. La frase, tomada de una entrevista realizada por RC en la que monseñor Vito respondía en italiano, no es correcta. Revisada la grabación, se ha comprobado que lo que afirma es que el Papa Francisco no es un Papa de otros tiempos, en los que sí se tomaron ese tipo de medidas, y que no iba a retirarles la dignidad cardenalicia. La noticia está corregida, pero publicamos esta rectificación por si no fuera suficiente.

Translation by Teresa:
Religion Confidencial published Tuesday a report that attributed to Mons.Pio Vito Pinto, dean of the Roman Rota, the statement that the four cardinals who wrote the pope with their DUBIA,'could lose their cardinal rank'. The clause, taken from an interview by RC in which Mons. Vito replied in Italian, is not correct.

After reviewing the tape, it was shown that what he said was thay Pope Francis is not like a pope from other times who did take such measures, and was not going to withdraw their cardinalates. The report has been corrected but we publish this rectification in case that corrected report was not adequate.

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So now they are saying that Msgr. Pinto did NOT say that the Pope could remove the Four Cardinals from the College. Instead under a Pope [in other times] perhaps that might happen.

So, all of us who jumped on Mons. Pinto for what he supposedly said owe him an apology.

I do have a few issues:
1. One might have expected Mons. Pinto himself to have immediately corrected the report misquoting him.
2. Even cutting out the statement that 'the pope could strip the carDInals of their rank', the rest of his statements with respect to the DUBIA and the Four Cardinals remain outrageous and typically Bergoglidolatrous.
2. Religion Confidencial a) should seriously review its journalistic standards if and when a wrong and misleading translation was made and published; and b) should have reviewed the tape recording of what was said for accuracy before publishing the report, and not do it only after the erroneous report had gone around the world and back.


It's also unfortunate that this is the photo used by the Spanish site to illustrate their interview. Fr. H remarked on it:

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Pio Vito Pinto

Nov. 29, 2016

Name of the Dean of the Rota. I have warned you about him several times. He's one of those who believe that whatever Bergoglio says is the voice of the Holy Spirit - the hypersuperueberpapalists. He's been doing it again, in Spain, and talking about the Four Cardinals being stripped of their dignity. (I thank Professor Tighe for this information.)

Go and look at him. You can see him at EWTN News (English). Captured in the act of doing it.

I looked at the picture and asked myself:
~ is this the face of someone through whom the Holy Spirit is speaking?
~ is this the Face of Mercy?

Dead scary.

I hope that all our Partners in Ecumenical Dialogue are carefully reading about what being in Communion with a Bergoglian Papacy would really be like.

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I find the following report far more troubling - even if not entirely unexpected - than anything Mons. Pinto could say...

Cardinal Mueller says the Vatican
will not reply to the DUBIA
'to avoid polarization'
Translated from

December 1, 2016

Rome-Madrid (kath.net/KAP) - The Vatican will not answer the Four Cardinals' Letter asking the pope for clarity on the question of communion for remarried divorcees. [A persistent and fundamental problem with the way the DUBIA are being reported - as if the RCDs were the only focus, rather than the objective case study that allow the cardinals to ask whether this pontificate is seeking to change the Church teaching on morality, specifically, by advocating moral relativism on sin, conscience and marriage.]

The CDF acts and speaks 'with the authority of the pope' and 'cannot take sides in a war of opinion' which 'risks polarization', said Cardinal Mueller in an interview given Thursday to kathpress in Rome. [But the polarization already exists and is growing more acute daily! Is Mueller in denial???]

Mueller pointed out that the letter was personally addressed to the pope, who could, however, he adds, direct the CDF ad hoc to 'settle the dispute'. [That doesn't make sense. Does Mueller really think this pope would ever delegate to him the authority for answering the DUBIA without telling him exactly which dubium he should answer YES and which NO? The Four Cardinals and the rest of the Catholic world that is fed up with the anti-Catholic evasions of this pope only need five words to 'resolve' the DUBIA.] The CDF is responsible for answering all questions on Church doctrine and practice.

The pope's failure to answer the Four Cardinals' Letter has been taken to mean that he has decided not to answer them at all and that he wishes further debate on the DUBIA. [Right,this pope encourages endless debate that will not resolve anything, instead of clearly teaching what is right and good as he is dutybound to do, being the pope. And why does no one ask him why he recognizes John Paul II's declaration that ordination of women priests is a closed question but does not recognize what the same pope declared equally closed in Familiaris consortio - no communion for unqualified remarried divorcees?]

About the DUBIA over Amoris laetitia, Mueller said, "For now, it is important for all of us to remain objective, and not to allow ourselves to be polarized or not to heat things up". [But, Your Eminence, being 'objective' applies to considering the reason and logic of two sides in a debate, after which one has to make a decision and decide for one or the other. Being objective does not mean being equivocal and ambiguous and casuistic, especially when espousing some concepts that do transgress what Catholics have always believed, as Bergoglio and his ghosts do in AL.]

On the most contentious point itself, whether AL allows communion for RCDs in 'well-founded' cases, Mueller did not answer directly. But he pointed out that the document should not be interpreted as if earlier statements by popes and the CDF on this question were no longer valid.

He especially cited the official reply of the CDF to the pastoral letter of three South German bishops in 1993 on communion for remarried divorcees, in which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as CDF Prefect rejected the bishops' proposal to give communion case by case.

The indissolubility of marriage must be 'the unshakeable basic doctrine for every pastoral accompaniment', Mueller said. But at the same time, he said, the pope wishes to help all those whose marriages and families are in a crisis "to find a way in accordance with the ever-gracious will of God." [Except that Communion-disqualified remarried divorcees form only a very tiny fraction of "all those whose marriages and families are in a crisis" - the majority of whom certainly can find spiritual support from their local priests if they sought it. Have priests generally rebuffed or been indifferent to their parishioners who have serious family and marital problems and who try genuinely to avoid divorce and other civil 'solutions'? (Unlike, that is, the now petted and lionized RCDs who had no second thoughts about getting a divorce despite what the Church teaches against it, and now typically want to have their cake and eat it too.)]

Müller also rejected reports of alleged 'trench warfare' in the Vatican. Rumors and stereotypes of "power struggle behind the scenes... between reformers and brawlers" only showed a "wrong perception of power categories", that the struggle is for "the victory of truth and not the triumph of power". [How unfortunate - and unworthy of the CDF Prefect - that Mueller uses the term 'brawlers' to oppose to 'reformers'!]

The article has two paragraphs about Mons. Vito Pinto's statement regarding the possibility that the Four Cardinals could be stripped of their rank and the subsequent correction by the Spanish news agency that reported it. But it also says:

But the website left Mons. Pinto's other criticisms of the Four Cardinals as is after their 'review' of the tape recording of the interview. Among this, when Pinto asks: "What church are these cardinals defending?... Making public their letter to the pope is a serious scandal".

December 2, 2016
P.S. Catholic Herald, reporting on Mueller's kathnet interviwe today, added the following with regard to the CDF's 1994 doctrinal letter cited by the cardinal:

The 1994 letter repeated the teaching of St John Paul’s 1981 exhortation Familiaris Consortio, which says that the remarried can only receive absolution, and therefore Communion, if they resolve to live “as brother and sister”.

The letter, which was signed by the then-CDF head Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and officially approved by St John Paul, says that the teaching of Familiaris Consortio applies without exception: “The structure of the Exhortation and the tenor of its words give clearly to understand that this practice, which is presented as binding, cannot be modified because of different situations.”

In the wake of Amoris Laetitia, some bishops have suggested that the Church’s doctrine on divorce, remarriage and Communion might admit exceptions. Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego has issued guidelines which say “the conscience of the discerner” should decide whether to receive Communion.

The 1994 letter, however, says that the decision should be taken in obedience to the Church’s teaching, which conscience cannot override. It states: “The mistaken conviction of a divorced and remarried person that he may receive Holy Communion normally presupposes that personal conscience is considered in the final analysis to be able, on the basis of one’s own convictions, to come to a decision about the existence or absence of a previous marriage and the value of the new union. However, such a position is inadmissible.”

Cardinal Müller also downplayed the controversy over the dubia, saying that it was wrong to think of a power struggle: emphasis should be on “the victory of truth and not the triumph of power”, the cardinal said.