Cardinal Müller writes to Cardinal Duka.

During the Synod’s first week, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, a direct participant and strong critic of the Synodal process (calling it “a hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ”), caused a stir.

Also, during the second week, the name of the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith came into the spotlight, although his activity this time was not a direct part of the session in Rome.

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller wrote a letter to Cardinal Dominic Duke in which he commented on the response of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to the dubia sent to the Vatican by the Archbishop Emeritus of Prague. The Prefect of the Dicastery, Víctor Manuel Fernández drafted the response.

Cardinal Müller’s letter was published on his blog Settimo cielo by Vatican scholar Sandro Magister.

Burke and Sarah ask about blessing of gay couples, Duka on divorcees
Cardinals write to the Pope/ Burke and Sarah ask about blessing gay couples, Duka on divorcees
The German cardinal, in a letter in which he teases Cardinal Duke and calls him “brother,” questions Fernandez’s claim that the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia from the Diocese of Buenos Aires is in continuity with the teachings of previous popes.

According to Prefect Fernández, Pope Francis insists on the total continence (continenza) proposal. First, therefore, they divorced and remarried in a new union. Still, he admits that difficulties may arise in its practice. Thus, in some instances, after appropriate discernment, he allows the Sacrament of Reconciliation to be conferred even when a person is incapable of the continence required by the Church.

According to Cardinal Müller, “even when one is incapable of the continence required by the Church” can be interpreted in two ways.

The first is that these divorcees try to live in continence, but because of difficulties and human weakness, they cannot do so. In this case, the “answer” could be in continuity with the teachings of St. John Paul II, Müller says.

The second is that because of their difficulties, these divorcees do not accept to live abstinent or attempt to do so (i.e., they have no intention of changing). “In this case, it would be a break with the previous magisterium,” says the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

According to Müller, Fernández’s answer seems to refer to the second possibility, as is supposedly indicated by the text of the Bishops of Buenos Aires themselves, who admit that there are cases of divorcees who do not try to abstain.

Cardinal Müller states that the continuity in the teaching of the Popes does not lie in the fact that someone may have already been admitted to Communion but in the criterion of that admission.

“John Paul II and Benedict XVI allow divorced people who, for serious reasons, live together without sexual intercourse to receive Holy Communion. However, they do not allow it when these persons habitually have sexual intercourse because here there is an objectively grave sin in which the person wants to persist and which, insofar as it touches the sacrament of marriage, takes on a public character,” Müller says.

In the “dubia,” the Czech cardinal also wondered who would decide on access to the sacraments for this group of people – a confessor, a local parish priest, an episcopal vicar, or a prison.

“The solution in the ‘Answer’ must have surprised you, which you could not have imagined. According to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the final decision must be made by each believer according to his conscience. It follows that the confessor merely submits to this decision of conscience,” Müller writes to Cardinal Duke.

“The faithful decide whether they will receive absolution, and the priest can only accept this decision! If this applies universally to all sins, then the sacrament of reconciliation loses its Catholic meaning,” the German cardinal continues.

According to him, in such a case, it is a matter of absolution of oneself after examining one’s own life. “This is far from the Protestant view condemned by Trident, which insists on the role of the priest as judge in confession,” he added.

At the same time, Cardinal Müller accused the dicastery he has led in the past of selectively picking and choosing from John Paul II’s statements what suited him when responding to Duke’s Dubai (alluding to the encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia).

The German cardinal finds it astonishing that the dicastery could present a text “with such a theological error for the Pope’s signature, thus endangering the authority of the Holy Father.”