So sorry, but I just realized that I did not post anything on Mons. Mueller's appointment to the CDF yesterday other than the announcement itself. I was waiting to find an English-language article that would be fair and not emphasize the 'controversial' items in his biodata that the MSM have been fixated upon in recent months since it became clear that Benedict XVI was going to name him to the CDF. I still have not found one - though followers of John Allen may have read his article about it already.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/german-friend-liberation-theologian-named-vatican-doctrinal-czar
Over the years, I have posted photos and stories about Mons. Mueller everytime he came to see the Pope and whenever he has made announcements that have to do with the Vatican and the Pope.
For the record, I am posting the AFP story on his CDF nomination today, and will supplement it later with an interview given by Sandro Magister who presents Mons. Mueller in the context of his relationship with Benedict XVI and the latter's esteem for him. This, out of a flood of commentary and analysis in the Italian media... What no one seems to mention is that whatever they may think of Mons. Mueller's theology, they cannot know it better than the Pope does! And more importantly, does anyone really doubt that the Pope himself will always be the last and definitive word on all things doctrinal in the Church, as he is by his duty as Pope, as well as by his own long service as the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy in John Paul II's Pontificate? As God would have it, Joseph Ratzinger has had to be his own Ratzinger in every way - there is no competent right-hand man nor better theologian alongside him as Blessed JPII had in him.
Pope's German friend
to guard Vatican orthodoxy
Left, Cardinal Ratzinger was among those who consecrated Mueller bishop of Regensburg in November 2002; right, Mueller in Regensburg Cathedral last Saturday when he ordained five deacons as priests. He left thereafter for Rome, where he was when the Vatican made the announcement Monday.
VATICAN CITY,July 2 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Monday appointed German archbishop Ludwig Müller, a conservative theologian with liberal leanings, to head up the Vatican's powerful orthodoxy watchdog.
The 64-year-old will replace American Cardinal William Levada, who retires from the helm of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, after seven years as enforcer of Catholic doctrine. It is a position previously held by the pope himself, as Joseph Ratzinger.
Müller, the archbishop of Regensburg in southern Germany, has a reputation as a defender of Catholic orthodoxy and has been criticised by German groups clamouring for change, such as Die Kirche von unten (The Church from Below).
A personal friend of the German-born Pope, who charged him with publishing his writings, Müller is however also known for his long-standing support for Gustavo Gutierrez, founder of the socialist Liberation theology movement.
His appointment was greeted with apprehension by the grassroots organisation Wir Sind Kirche (We are Church), which said Müller "has been very reserved, hostile" towards fundamentalists in his diocese whose vision of the Church differs.
"A key issue will be to see if his long friendship with the South American liberation theologists will lead to a re-evaluation of that theory, which Ratzinger has fought against down the years," the group said.
[Too much has been made by the Pope's critics of Mueller's friendship with Gutierrez = so they are friends, what's wrong with that? - and the same critics also make the blanket claim that Cardinal Ratzinger condemned liberation theology in toto. Obviously, they have never bothered to read the statements on LT issued by the CDF at the time. What the Church objects to is not liberation theology per se, whose primary objective is for the Church to exercise a 'preferential option for the poor' - which has been part of Church practice since the first Christian community in Jerusalem. What was objectionable about LT as practised in Latin American in the 1980s (and survives in some form today), mainly with the intellectual influence of liberal German and Dutch theologians, was that it had been made into a Marxist ideology rather than Christian teaching, diminishing the figure of Christ to a social and political propagandist rather than the Son of God, and interpreting the work of the Church to be primarily political and social rather than spiritual.]
His fierce reputation as a conservative, alongside his close friendship with Gutierrez reflects a common contradiction in the Vatican hierarchy of openness in some quarters countered by an unshakable hard-line stance on Church morals.
Müller, who travels to Peru almost every year to see Gutierrez, defended liberation theology - which champions the poor - in 2008, when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP).
But the Vatican has long criticised the movement, seen by some as a fusion between Christianity and Marxism. The Holy See this year also fell out with the university, insisting it come into line with Lima's conservative archbishop.
The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith plays a key role in the Vatican's governing body, holding the diverse theological strains within the global Catholic Church to account.
Müller is expected to assume the post in the next few days when Levada retires and will have to take up the reins on a host of unfinished affairs, including the clerical sex abuse scandal which has engulfed the Church.
The watchdog cracks down on dissident factions, from rebellious priests challenging the Vatican's approach to priest celibacy, homosexuality and women in the Church, to feminist nuns in the United States.
The most informative biography available in English on the new CDF Prefect can be found on the website of the Diocese of Regensburg.
www.bischof-gerhard-ludwig-mueller.de/borPage004750.asp
And of course, Hans Kueng has reacted, not that we care, and said the Pope has not learnt a lesson at all from Vatileaks, and has now made a 'catastrophic decision in naming Mueller whom Kueng said is "unloved as a bishop, irrelevant as a theologian, and a burden to ecumenism". What does he care who leads the CDF, since he is a one-man 'church' unto himself who has made himself supremely 'unloved, irrelevant and a burden' to the Catholic Church?
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/07/2012 21:16]