EVERY POPE IS ENTITLED TO HIS HOLINESS' OPINIONS; EVERY CATHOLIC CAN AGREE, DISAGREE OR IGNORE EVERY OPINION OF EVERY POPE

 My vote in the next conclave is for Cardinal Mueller! He gives a scholarly theology of the papacy in a talk given in Turin, Italy, Torino to us Italians.

I copy this from Silere non possum (Latin for, I cannot be silent), an Italian blog and one of the first blogs to break the scandal of the Jesuit priest and good friend of Pope Francis. The first part is Silere non possum's introduction followed by the words of the future Pope John Paul Benedict I, aka Cardinal Mueller.

Please note that while the introductory piece from Silere is opinion, the talk by Muller is backed up with Scripture, Tradition and the perennial Magisterium of the Church. His Eminence's talk isn't opinion in other words, but a teaching document of a Cardinal and former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

Cardinal Mueller's talk sounds like a good papal encyclical. It is not incoherent. It is academic, understandable, coherent and orthodox. It is a great encyclical on the papacy and much needed today where opinion and a parliamentary syndol listening is manipulated for the purposes of a monarchical/dictatorial papacy and thus weakens the faith, morals, anthropology and Tradition of the Church  by a Gnostic form of papal opinions and creeping infallibility on these opinions as though a part of the papal magisterium which opinions never can be!

Silere non possum, Latin for I cannot be Silent, (a Google Translate of the Italian text):

Every Pope must distinguish precisely between his divine mandate and himself as an individual with all his limitations. He must not impose his private opinions on politics or economics and non-theological sciences on other Christians”. Cardinal Müller, prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke loudly and clearly at the presentation of his new book.

The cardinal focused on the figure of Petrine and took a picture of the current situation which is, to say the least, dramatic. Then he remarked: “The papacy is, in its most intimate essence, a service to the unity of the whole Church in the truth of the Gospel. Peter's ministry is not a secular office of ruler in the manner of absolutist kings and autocratic tsars, but a pastoral-spiritual ministry." Yet, Francis's choices in recent years have increasingly seemed to manifest the idea of ​​an absolute monarch with very little spiritual essence. The economic and organizational reforms are on the Pope's desk but as far as Jesus Christ and the celebration of the sacraments are concerned, Bergoglio's legs hurt. However, the Pontiff is keen to underline that "one does not govern with one's legs". We would dare to say: "but not even the Holy Mass is celebrated with the legs".

The prefect emeritus then underlined: “Bishops and popes must not take the example of secular rulers who oppress and exploit their peoples. Rather, they must excel in greater devotion to the eternal salvation of believers. In fact, Jesus said to the apostles, who were arguing about which of them should take first place: «… whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. Like the Son of man, who did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many"

d.R.I.

Silere non possum

CARDINAL MULLER'S TALK:

Anyone who wants to describe the importance of the papacy to the Catholic Church must start with Jesus Christ.

Indeed, it is only in the light of the Word made flesh that the "mystery of the holy Church" is revealed in its foundation by the historical Jesus of Nazareth. With the establishment of the Church as a visible community of people who are related to God in faith, hope and love in the Holy Spirit, Jesus also called his apostles to be his vicars.

The bishops (with the presbyters and deacons at their side) preside as successors of the apostles "in God's place of Christ's flock", as shepherds in their guidance, as teachers in the proclamation of the Gospel and as priests in sacred worship, i.e. in the celebration of the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist. After his resurrection from the dead and through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and all who are to come to faith, Jesus completed the foundation of the visible Church on earth.

The Catholic and Apostolic Church is the Communion with the Triune God and the continuation of the Mission of Christ in history.

His task is to lead all men to faith in Jesus, the Son of God, and through the seven holy sacraments to the veneration and worship of God. "The Church is, in Christ, in some way the sacrament, that is the sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of all mankind,” as Vatican II says.

The Holy Roman Church has a special role in the communion of the local Churches constituted by the Bishops, because it is founded on the testimony of the word and the martyrdom of the blood of the Princes of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Its bishop, as the successor of Saint Peter, is "the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of the unity of faith and communion".

With, in, and through Peter and each of his successors in the See of Peter, the whole Church confesses at every moment that Jesus is her divine founder. He is the Word made flesh (cf. Jn 1:1

We, the disciples of Jesus, are not ourselves the light of the world. But the Church confesses that only the Word of God, through whom everything originated, is "the light of men" (Jn 1:4) that can illuminate the darkness of the world. With her gaze fixed on Jesus, the Church continually makes Peter's confession her own: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16:16).

Simon, the man of Galilee whom the Son of God Himself called Peter the Rock (Greek Κηφᾶς), is the person most frequently mentioned in the New Testament after Jesus. He is always named first in the list of the Twelve Apostles. He is the spokesman of the pre-Easter circle of Jesus' disciples and the highest representative of the Apostolic College. When the risen Lord appears to Peter, who in his person represents the whole Church, Christ makes him the most important witness of his mission to the Father (cf. 1 Cor 15:5), and also establishes his central position in the Church early Jerusalem. He is the nucleus of the universal (= catholic) and apostolic Church which derives from it in every age and in the whole world. The continuity of the Church in changing times and in the succession of generations derives from the fact that all believers in Christ remain "persevering in the teaching of the apostles and in communion, in the breaking of bread (Eucharist) and in prayers" i.e. in the Divine Liturgy ( Acts 2, 42). By "teaching of the apostles" we obviously do not mean a philosophical idea or a scientific theory, but rather the preaching and testimony of the apostles, "who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and became ministers of the Word" (Lk 1:2) .

The "Word" (the Logos who is God himself) is a divine Person, that is Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father (Jn 1, 14-18), who with Him and with the Holy Spirit is the one and only God. From his mother Mary (Gal 4, 4; Mt 1, 18; Lk 1, 35) he assumed our human flesh and blood and a human spiritual soul (= human nature) (Heb 2, 14).

The "teaching of the apostles" which, as a profession of faith (creed = symbol of faith) is the foundation of the visible and sacramental Church, is detailed in Peter's first sermon after the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and on all those who, starting from this announcement of the Word of God, were baptized to be part of the community of the primitive Church (Acts 2, 14-36). Peter, in fact, together with the other eleven apostles, stood up and presented Jesus to the listeners of all the nations gathered in Jerusalem as the fulfillment of God's entire history of salvation towards Israel and towards all humanity: «Know therefore with certainty the whole house of Israel whom God has made Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36).

Peter is therefore, together with the other apostles, the guarantor and witness of the identity of the historical Jesus until his death on the cross and of the Christ of faith thanks to the paschal event. Consequently, Peter is also the representative of the unity of the circle of pre-Easter disciples and of the post-Easter Church, which God brought about on the basis of the event of Pentecost

Who was that Simon to whom Jesus gave the name Peter?

By trade, Simon was a simple fisherman on the Sea of ​​Galilee. Jesus did not call the disciples he wanted to make of him apostles (envoys, missionaries) from the circle of the powerful, influential and wise of the world (cf. 1 Cor 1, 26-31) but from humble and believing ordinary people. In fact, no one should have the opportunity to boast of their merits and, therefore, to charm listeners with demagogic rhetoric and propaganda. The apostles must not draw people's attention to themselves. Rather, they must direct the hearers of their preaching to Christ, the true "Savior of the world" (Jn 4:42). Because “Jesus is the only name given to us under heaven, by which we can be saved.” (Acts 4, 12).

Nor was Simon Peter the iron-nerved personality who, in his stoic composure, could not be shaken by anything. Jesus often had to rebuke him sharply for his reckless enthusiasm and his defeatist temptations. He even reproached him as the adversary who hindered Jesus' mission, which was to be accomplished not in the splendor of the golden palaces, but in the shame of the cross of Golgotha ​​(cf., Mt 16:21-23). Faced with Jesus' passion, Peter, the apostle of the highest rank, even cowardly denied Jesus three times with the words: "I do not know this man" (Mt 26:74).

The risen Lord therefore reminded Peter of this denial at the sea of ​​Tiberias, asking him three times: "Do you love me more than these?" (Jn 21, 15-19). Because this love for Jesus also brought about his conversion (Lk 22:32) and made evident the depth of communion with Christ as the origin and center of Peter's ministry.

This also applies to his successors on the Cathedra Petri in the office of Bishop of Rome. In Simon's call as the rock on which Jesus builds his Church (Mt 16:18), the mission and authority of the Roman Pontiff are also prefigured.

The papacy is, in its most intimate essence, a service to the unity of the whole Church in the truth of the Gospel. Peter's ministry is not a secular office of ruler in the manner of absolutist kings and autocratic tsars, but a pastoral-spiritual ministry. Bishops and popes must not follow the example of secular rulers who oppress and exploit their people. Rather, they must excel in greater devotion to the eternal salvation of believers. In fact, Jesus said to the apostles, who were arguing about which of them should take first place: «… whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. Like the Son of man, who did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many". (Mt 20, 26-28).

The title, which probably expresses the essence of the papacy in the deepest way, comes from Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), who called himself Servus servorum Dei as opposed to the powerful and ostentatious patriarch of the then imperial capital of Constantinople.

Unlike the mercenary, the good shepherd is recognized by the fact that, like Jesus, he gives his life for his sheep. In fact, Jesus, true Shepherd of the Church and of all men (Jn 10, 11; 1 Pt 2, 25; Heb 13, 20), three times said to Peter: «Feed my lambs and my sheep» (Jn 21, 15-19) . The giving of one's life is also the inner core of every pastoral ministry in the office of bishops and priests (1 Pt 5, 2; Acts 20, 28; Heb 13, 17). In the Upper Room, Jesus entrusts Peter with the perennial task of "strengthening his brothers", that is, in their faith in Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord (Lk 22:32).

Jesus' great promise to Peter in the Gospel of Matthew is also found written in the dome of St. Peter's Basilica above the tomb of the Apostle. «And I tell you: you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the powers of hell will not prevail over it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Mt 16:18-19).

These words of Jesus cannot be relativized by saying that Jesus did not expressly speak of a successor in Rome or by questioning the historical permanence and martyrdom of the Prince of the Apostles in Rome. It was rather providential that Peter's universal mission was accomplished in his bloody martyrdom in Rome at the time of Nero. Indeed, that Other (Jn 14:26) who will lead Peter where he does not want to go is the Holy Spirit, who assists him so that he can "glorify God through his death" (Jn 21:19).

The Catholic Church has always understood the word of Jesus himself as the foundation of the Roman Primacy and as the spiritual foundation of his exercise. A justification in the political status of Rome as the capital of a world empire or the pragmatic consideration that there should be an honorary president (primus inter pares) among the bishops by virtue of a human right has always been rigorously rejected.

The office of Peter and his successors in bishops is a truth revealed by God which we accept with supernatural faith. Peter and Paul are the founders of the Church of Rome in that their apostolic teaching and their bloody martyrdom gave that one Church the first apostolic foundation. "With this Church, in fact, by reason of its superior authority, every church must agree, that is, the faithful of the whole world, since the apostolic tradition has been preserved in it". For the disciples of that time and for the whole Church until the end of time, Peter confesses that Jesus is not a prophet or a founder of a religion, but "the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16:16).

This judgment does not derive from purely human logic, but was revealed to Peter and to all believers by Jesus' "Heavenly Father" in the power of the Holy Spirit (Mt 16:17).

It is the same Christ who, before going to the Father, in the saving event of the Ascension, gathered the apostles around him to send them to all humanity in every time and place on earth. The risen Lord approaches the eleven disciples and says to them: «All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:18-20).

As far as the Orthodox Churches and Protestant communities are concerned, the primacy of the pope with the doctrine of infallibility in ex cathedra decisions and the primacy in universal ecclesial governance (jurisdictional primacy) is often perceived as a "stumbling block", an obstacle , since the individual local Churches are prevented from following their own paths of faith by adapting to their own culture and raison d'état. But it is precisely the primacy of the Roman Church which offers the divine guarantee that the Catholic Church remains a universal Church and does not disintegrate into autocephalous national churches.

A national church with its own creed doubly contradicts the universal unity of all persons baptized in Christ.

In the first place, nations, peoples, cultures and languages ​​produce neither subjects nor passive membranes capable of translating "a divine background noise" into a human melody pleasing to contemporaries.

Second, the Word of God unites believers in the Pentecostal Spirit of the Father and the Son across cultural differences into one Church.

Against the fundamental falsification of the Christian mysteries of the unity and the Trinity of God, of the incarnation, of the sacramentality of the Church and of the corporeality of the redemption, at the end of the second century Irenaeus of Lyons underlined against the Gnostics of his time and of all times the unity (unitas) and communion of the universal Church on the basis of the apostolic tradition. "In reality, the Church, although spread throughout the world to the ends of the earth, having received the faith from the Apostles and their disciples..., preserves this preaching and this faith with care and, as if she lived in a single house, there believes in the same identical way, as if he had only one soul and one heart, and he preaches the truths of the faith, teaches them and transmits them with a unanimous voice, as if he had only one mouth [...] In fact, if the languages ​​in the world are varied, but the content of the Tradition is unique and identical. And neither the Churches that are in Germany, nor those that are in Spain, nor those that are among the Celts (in Gaul), nor those of the East, of Egypt, of Libya, nor those who are at the center of the world".

The bishop therefore also represents in his person the diachronic and synchronic unity of the Church in the succession of the apostles and the internal continuity of the Church with its origin in Christ and in the apostles. Since only the Bishop of Rome is the personal successor of Peter, while the other bishops are successors of the Apostles throughout their college, the prerogatives of Simon in his capacity as Peter, as the rock on which Christ, the Son of the living God, will build His Church, are also valid for the Bishop of Rome. Over time, the title of "Pope" has evolved to include in a single term the essential elements of the Petrine ministry of the Roman bishop.

But there remains a crucial difference between apostles and bishops. The apostles, with Peter at the head, were the direct recipients and bearers of God's full self-revelation in Christ. The bishops and the pope, on the other hand, are linked in content to the realization of revelation in Sacred Scripture and in the Apostolic Tradition. “The office (…) of authentically interpreting the word of God, written or transmitted, is entrusted only to the living magisterium of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. Which magisterium, however, is not superior to the word of God but serves it, teaching only what has been handed down, inasmuch as, by divine mandate and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it piously listens, holy guards and faithfully expounds that word, and from this single deposit of faith he draws everything he proposes to believe as revealed by God”.

Even if the doctrinal decisions of the Church in particular cases infallibly reflect revelation because they are supported by the charism of the Holy Spirit, nevertheless they require the best possible human preparation and demand to be jealously preserved and faithfully exposed and both the Pope and the bishops are obliged to do so in consciousness. Even for the general governance of the Church, the Pope should first entrust himself to the College of Cardinals, which, after all, represents the Holy Roman Church and – like the presbytery advises a bishop – advises the Pope collegially/synodally. As in all cases, a consultative body constituted by the supreme decision-maker according to criteria of complacency and clientelism is of little use and does more harm than good to those in charge. The latter does not need the praises that flatter human vanity, but the critical expertise of collaborators who are not interested in the benevolent gestures of the superior but in the success of his office, that is, of the pontificate, for the Church of the One and Triune God .

Looking at the human weaknesses that can afflict us in an imminent way, as already in the case of Simon Peter, Joseph Ratzinger also spoke in terms of the history of the Church of the fact that even the Popes can become a scandal because, as human beings, they believe they want to blaze a trail that is populist to public taste but contradicts the spirit of Christ.

Every Pope must distinguish precisely between his divine mandate and himself as an individual with all his limitations. He must not impose his private opinions on politics or economics and non-theological sciences on other Christians.

Nor may a pope or bishop or other ecclesiastical superior abuse the trust which is readily placed in him in a fraternal atmosphere to furnish incompetent or corrupt "friends" with ecclesiastical sinecures or, contrary to divine right, arbitrarily depose bishops to him personally unwelcome or to interfere without just cause in the ordinary pastoral office of the diocesan bishop.

If there was a traitor among the apostles chosen by Jesus, and even Peter denied Jesus during the Passion, then we know that even the human representatives of the Church in history and in the present can fail and abuse their office in a selfish or narrowed down.

We also have an example of this in matters of faith, given that Paul openly resisted Peter when he allowed himself a dangerous ambiguity in the "truth of the Gospel" (Gal 2:11-14). Our affective and effective attachment to the Pope and our bishop or pastor has nothing to do with the unworthy personality cult of secular autocrats, but is brotherly love for a fellow Christian who has been entrusted with the highest responsibility in the Church . It can also fail in this. That is why loving admonition promotes the Church more than slavish hypocrisy.

But the best way to help the Pope and bishops is through prayer. We trust in Jesus, the Lord of the Church, who before his Passion said to Simon, the rock on which he would build his Church (Mt 16:18): «Simon, Simon, behold: Satan has sought you to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And you, once converted, strengthen your brothers" (Lk 22, 31-32).

Peter's faith is the faith of the whole Church, "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, you may have life in his name" (Jn 20:31).

Article published on May 10, 2023