Cardinal Müller Harshly Judges Fiducia Supplicans

Cardinal Müller Does Not Budge

In an interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register given on January 29 in Rome, and published online on February 12, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, reacted to the continuing fallout from the Fiducia supplicans declaration. From his view, instead of giving nebulous justifications, he stated, “We must say the truth [about this pseudo-blessing]: That it is blasphemy; that it is a sin.”

“You can betray yourself, you can betray the others, but nobody can betray God.” Regarding the supposedly pastoral concern with regard to homosexuals, the prelate affirms: “These people are not brought to the Church by relativizing the truth and cheapening grace, but by the unadulterated Gospel of Christ.”

The cardinal denounces a flawed pastoral approach towards irregular or same-sex couples, because this pastoral approach is not based on the Catholic doctrine of salvation. For the current authorities, “these people [adulterers or homosexuals] are only in difficult situations for their weakness, and so they deny the existence of sin as a willingness to do wrong and act against God’s holy will [thinking]: They are only poor people, and we must help them.”

“But what is the help of Jesus Christ? It’s the help of grace; it’s the renewal of life. Everybody is called to the kingdom of God. Yes, everybody is called. But the salvation is the new life in Jesus Christ, to be free from sin, and not only to respect a moral standard as an ideal set by an elite, or rules made by the society, but to do so according to the holy will of Jesus. This is the meaning of sanctification, and it is a true happiness that goes the way of God. That’s the true happiness – and not obstinately repeating sins.”

Basically, according to Cardinal Müller, the drama is that, in Fiducia supplicans, “There’s no clear anthropology, clear doctrine: What is grace? What is sin? What is original sin? What are the personal sins? What to do with your own will and the cooperation of your free will with grace?”

“In the Council of Trent we have this great document about justification and original sin. And there it says: ‘If anybody is saying that also with the help of grace, you are not able to avoid sin, this is anathema sit and you are excluded from the full communion of the Church.’ What is needed is a real turning away from sin and a full conversion to the Lord.”

And he invites the faithful: “Go back to the clarity of the word of God, and what is said in the Catechism, and not this bowing down to this absolutely wrong LGBT and woke ideology. That is not modern; that is falling back to the old paganism. You see it in the old pagan Greek, Roman and Persian world: Everybody, everywhere allowed homosexual acts and sexual relations with minors, and they had not this high standard of morality given in the Ten Commandments. But on the other hand, St. Paul said even pagans are, in the light of their reason and conscience, able to understand what is written in their hearts [the natural moral law].”

The Natural Family Is Falling Apart

For his part, Sandro Magister proposes a return to reality: while Rome gives priority to irregular and same-sex couples, the natural family collapses in Italy. The Vaticanist writes on his website Settimo Cielo on February 9: “In Italy, the nation of 59 million inhabitants and of which Pope Francis is the premier pastor, there are around 2,000 civil unions per year between people of the same sex.”

“We can therefore legitimately assume that, among them, there are very few homosexual couples who will knock on the door of the Church for blessing, given the growing share of the population which is moving away from the Church, in Italy as in many other countries.”

“And yet, the blessing of same-sex couples has become the No. 1 issue for the Church of Pope Francis; it is the one over which he has exercised his authority the most recently, going so far as to arouse opposition from cardinals, bishops, the faithful, and entire local Churches, including those throughout black Africa.”

The Italian journalist warns: “The statistics should prompt the Church to completely different concerns and commitments. Not focused, as is the case today, on more or less irregular unions between people of the same sex, but on regular couples, ordinary heterosexual couples, on families in the classic sense of the term.”

“Because in the meantime, in the silence and apparent disinterest of the highest authority of the Church, these families are withering away year after year. Until the 1970s, there were more than 400,000 marriages per year in Italy, almost all celebrated in the Church. While in 2023, and with many more inhabitants than at the time, religious marriages will barely exceed 70,000, with a brutal collapse of 14% in just one year, compared to 2022.”

And he specifies: “Today, in Italy, we celebrate barely one wedding per thousand inhabitants. In Lombardy, the most populous and most industrialized region, of which Milan is the capital, the figures are even lower: 0.7 religious marriages per thousand inhabitants. In other words, in a Lombard town of 10,000 inhabitants, barely seven weddings are celebrated in the Church in a year, which is practically nothing.”

What is the cause of this disinterest in the natural family? Sandro Magister quotes Domenico Delle Foglie, former vice-director of the Italian Episcopal Conference daily newspaper Avvenire and general coordinator of Family Day 2007, the last important and influential family initiative held in Italy. The latter wrote in Il Foglio of January 6: today “a sort of gigantic and indulgent ‘who am I to judge?’ [attitude] seems to prevail.”

“So that the renunciation of the exercise of the faculty of judgment (not to be confused with the condemnation mania) seems to prevail over any objective evaluation of the human risk, much more than social and cultural, which underlies the fabric of these new rights. We are helplessly witnessing a sort of ecclesial frenzy of assimilation which would encourage people to accept (and therefore to appropriate) all the choices of the world.”

In conclusion, the Italian Vaticanist reports this fact which demonstrates, better than any speculative argument, the blindness of the current authorities: in a photograph taken on December 20, 2023, two days after the publication of the Fiducia supplicans declaration, “the American Jesuit James Martin, very close to Pope Francis, carried out an act which he described like this on social media:

“‘Dear friends, I had the honor of publicly blessing my friends James and Damien this morning in our Jesuit residence, according to the new guidelines promulgated by the Vatican for same-sex couples. But before that, it was they who blessed me with their friendship and support.’” 

Quelle est la cause de ce désintérêt pour la famille naturelle ? Sandro Magister cite Domenico Delle Foglie, ancien vice-directeur du quotidien de la Conférence épiscopale italienne Avvenire et coordinateur général du Family Day de 2007, la dernière initiative pour la famille importante et influente qui s’est tenue en Italie. Ce dernier a écrit dans Il Foglio du 6 janvier : aujourd’hui « semble prévaloir une sorte de gigantesque et indulgent “qui suis-je, moi, pour juger ?”.

« De sorte que la renonciation à l’exercice de la faculté de juger (à ne pas confondre avec la manie de condamner) semble prévaloir sur toute autre évaluation objective du risque humain, bien plus que social et culturel, qui sous-tend la fabrique de ces droits nouveaux. On est en train d’assister impuissants à une sorte de frénésie ecclésiale d’assimilation qui inciterait à accepter (et donc à s’approprier) tous les choix du monde. »

En conclusion, le vaticaniste italien rapporte ce fait qui manifeste, mieux que tout argument spéculatif, l’aveuglement des autorités actuelles : sur une photographie prise le 20 décembre 2023, deux jours après la publication de la déclaration Fiducia supplicans, « le jésuite américain James Martin, très proche du pape François, pose un acte qu’il a décrit comme ceci sur les réseaux sociaux :

« “Chers amis, j’ai eu l’honneur de bénir en public mes amis James et Damien ce matin dans notre résidence des jésuites, selon les nouvelles directives promulguées par le Vatican pour les couples de même sexe. Mais avant cela, c’est eux qui m’avaient béni par leur amitié et leur soutien.” » – Face à une telle cécité, on ne s’étonne guère que certains en viennent à demander pour ce type de jésuite « arc-en-ciel » : « Mon Dieu, ouvrez-lui les yeux, ou fermez-les lui. »