“The Pope Is Not Authorized by Christ to Harass Good Bishops”

Faced with growing rumors that the Holy See will ask Bishop Joseph Strickland to resign, the German cardinal is clear: “If I could advise Bishop Strickland, he should definitely not resign, because then they [the Vatican] could wash their hands of it.”

The cardinal recalls that “a bishop cannot be dismissed from his functions by the pope, in accordance with the demands of justice, unless he has been guilty of something bad (heresy, schism, apostasy, a crime, or totally un-priestly behavior), e.g., the pseudo-blessing of people of both sexes or one sex in extramarital relations that offends God and defrauds people of their salvation.”

He also warns: “arbitrary removal as bishop of a diocese where a bishop is appointed by Christ Himself as His own shepherd undermines the authority of the pope, as happened historically with the unworthy abuse of office under the Avignon papacy.”

To those who think that the pope is an absolute monarch whose will has the force of law, the German cardinal reminds:

“According to Catholic doctrine, the Pope is not the Lord of the Church, but only the vicar of Christ for the universal Church, the first servant of his Lord, who had to say to Simon Peter, who was destined to be the Rock of the Church: “Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men” (Mt. 16:23).

And he adds: “The Pope has no authority from Christ to harass and intimidate good bishops in the example of Christ, the Good Shepherd,… just because false friends denounce these good bishops to Francis as enemies of the Pope, while heretical and immoral bishops can do what they want, or who every day harass the Church of Christ with another foolishness.”