A top cardinal raised concerns about how his fellow prelates understand the nature of the Church and treat papal authority.
“The theory of the Pope as autocrat, borrowed from 19th century Jesuit theology, not only contradicts the Second Vatican Council, but undermines the credibility of the Church with this caricature of the Petrine ministry,” Cdl. Gerhard Müller told Spanish Catholic website InfoVaticana in September.
The German cardinal complained about views on papal authority expressed by his brother bishops during the September consistory in Rome.
“There was no opportunity to discuss the burning issues, for example, about the frontal attack on the Christian image of man by the ideologies of posthumanism and gender madness or about the crisis of the Church in Europe,” Müller lamented.
Among those neglected issues, Müller also identified shortages of priestly vocations and Mass attendees. Instead, bishops “referred to the theory of the papacy as an unlimited power of divine right over the entire Church, as if the Pope were a Deus in terris [Latin: ‘God on land’],” Müller said.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, the Pope’s top adviser on curial reform, represents an additional concern. Müller noted that Ghirlanda “holds the view that everything Popes have said or done in the course of Church history is either dogma or law, de jure divine [Latin: ‘of divine law’]. This contradicts the entire Catholic tradition, and especially Vatican II.”
Müller acknowledged that today’s focus in the Church is on the ecology and concerns for the planet, rather than on Jesus Christ and concern for salvation. The cardinal attributed this earthly focus to the lure of worldly power, prestige, money and pleasure dominant in today’s world. These lures have enticed many within the Church, leading them to attempt to create “a new world order with out God,” Müller said.