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It’s Not Just The Four Cardinals Who Need An Answer

January 12, 2017 Frontpage 8 Comments

By JOSEPH MATT

It seems another prelate has abandoned his post. In an interview on January 8, Gerhard Cardinal Mueller, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, rejected making any correction of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia, effectively joining some of his fellow German cardinals in a slight to Cardinal Burke and his three colleagues.

The very title of the congregation which this cardinal heads implies the importance of the office and its crucial role — especially as it relates to the current situation with the four cardinals and the dubia. Cardinal Mueller’s words in this interview are a critical blow to the current dubia situation. What is the relevance of such a congregation if it cannot offer an answer in a matter that requires a clarification regarding the Catholic faith?

Mueller’s snub adds to the relentless and uncharitable campaign from within to marginalize these four courageous cardinals. Their treatment by their peers is nothing short of scandalous and constitutes a grave injustice to them and our Church. These good men who are simply looking for clarity and answers to basic questions concerning the Catholic faith do not deserve the kind of disrespect they are getting from their fellow clergymen.

The time for silence on this issue among fellow cardinals, bishops, and priests has passed.

Make no mistake about this; it is an event that has drawn a line in the sand which will have consequences in the immediate future of the Catholic Church. Those who remain silent about this matter will be complicit in its consequences. Sadly, the Vatican, through intimidation and in an almost dictatorial fashion, has tried to portray the four cardinals, and those supporting them, as undermining the Pope, or dismissed them out of hand because of alleged ulterior motives.

The conflict with the four cardinals is not just a remote issue related to them: It affects each and every Catholic who is suffering the detrimental effects already. Fr. Mark Pilon in last week’s Wanderer analyzed the ill consequences of this controversy.

To highlight the gravity of this situation, take for instance the Church’s teaching on receiving the Eucharist: Anybody instilled with basic Catholic teaching knows that someone in a state of objective mortal sin cannot receive the sacrament. Any teaching contrary to this demands immediate clarity from the highest office of the Church. This is one of the glaring issues at hand. If this exception is allowed, logically our Catholic faith quickly unravels. It would lose its basis and its substance, plain and simple. Every catechized Catholic knows that.

With all due respect, the Pope’s silence on this matter and the relentless attack on the four cardinals widen the growing division in the Church. Serious Catholics are becoming concerned and even angry that the faith passed on to them– with a historical basis of 2,000 years of magisterial teaching and tradition — is being undermined and threatened.

Some issues only the Pope can resolve, and this is one of them. Not his spokesman, not his representatives, but the Shepherd of Shepherds, the Pope, the representative of Christ on Earth, must answer and guide the flock when questions of this magnitude arise. And, after all, the Pope’s own words created this controversy.

Your Holiness, your leadership is required and commissioned by God Himself. Your silence on this matter has only inflamed and provoked the de facto schism which is taking place.

The longer these issues continue, unresolved, the worse the harm to the Church.

Your Holiness, the cardinals deserve an answer; the Catholic faithful deserve an answer.

The Catholic faithful are growing wary and angry. The significance of this passing Year of Mercy rings hollow when one looks at the unjust treatment of four sincere cardinals in good standing, berated and undermined for doing what God called them to do. The heavens cry out for simple justice on this matter.

Intimidation and threats did not stop the martyrs, disciples, and Catholic faithful throughout the ages from proclaiming the teachings of Christ. Let’s not let it stop us. Stand up for these cardinals, stand up for the faith. Let your voices be heard.

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  • D. Johnson

    It is providential that PF has removed Cardinal Burke from the Vatican. The dubia presented by
    the four Cardinals is only the first step. Accusing a Pope of heresy and proving it, is a long and complicated process. Fortunately Cardinal Burke has the appropriate legal mind and know how to
    proceed…..that is providential.

  • Beth Van

    Yes, I am growing wary and angry that the Chair of Peter seem to be inhabited by a socialist dictator instead of God’s priest and Christ’s representative on earth. I pray for Francis and those in the Church hierarchy who agree with and support his views, but it is becoming harder and harder to do this with any level of love, because they have and continue to move far beyond, “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.” (paraphrased) So, I am actually it seems praying more so for their conversion – which I doubt will occur because of their hardened hearts and minds – and more so for the preservation, or restoration, of the Church founded by Jesus.

    • Margaret

      No one is beyond the point of conversion until after death. Remember: St. Peter denied Our Lord three times. After His resurrection, Our Lord helped St. Peter amend his triple denial by a triple profession of love.

      Also, the good thief: Remember me, O Lord, when You shall come into Your kingdom. For that simple plea, Our Lord promised him paradise. Cf. Luke 22 and 23.

  • kiwiinamerica

    Jesus to St. Peter: “But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.”

    Pope Francis: “seekers of certainty in all things……rigid………doctors of the law”

    The words and actions of Francis are diametrically opposed to the mandate which Jesus gave to Peter. Not only does he not “confirm his brethren”, he actually spreads confusion and then sneers, ridicules and denigrates those who request that he confirm the brethren.

    He is the embodiment, the personification and fulfillment of all the post-Vatican II hanky-panky. The smoke of Satan has indeed reached the very summit of the Church; we have a heretical imposter in the See of Peter.

  • DJR

    “The Catholic faithful are growing wary and angry…”

    You forgot to finish that sentence: “… at the pope.”

    A person can tell that we have entered a different era when he can read in the Wanderer a criticism of the reigning pontiff.

    We are headed for a huge conflict.

  • Jim

    I am deeply saddened, and a little fearful, that the state of the Church seems to be sinking to the level of the state of the US. We live in a country where killing babies is accepted and promoted, where euthanasia is on the rise as it is in Belgium and Canada, where violence is epidemic, where God is dismissed from schools and any “public” facility, where individual responsibility is no longer required, where sodomy is cheered, where traditional marriage is debased by gay “marriage”, where, simply put, we have thrown our moral compass to the ground and stomped on it. My one Rock in the accelerating decline of simple morality has been the Church. Now it too is betraying its faithful followers. We have in the highest levels of the Church men who arrogantly dismiss the pronouncements of Jesus and substitute their vain pronouncements. To them I quote Isaiah 520: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who change darkness into light and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter.” I am over 70 years old and I am so glad I’m not 30. The years ahead are dark indeed in both the world and the Church.

  • standtall909

    And NOW, we are learning that the Maltese Bishops have publicly and FORMALLY invited ‘irregular’ Catholics back to the sacraments “If they feel at peace with God”. If the conscience tells you your soul is in ok shape, please feel free to come to the Eucharist. And throughout their statement, they make MULTIPLE references to Amoris Laetitia. This has gone too far. This is EXACTLY what the Cardinals who issued the Dubia were afraid of……..and………here it is. These Bishops have ALREADY placed themselves outside of the Church! It’s not the faithful who are in schism, the prelates who are promoting and demanding the errors that they understand in A.L. are in schism!

    • samuel esco

      Now I begin to understand all the prophesies of our Lady at Fatima. Now I understand that small book. AA 1025. Wish every Catholic would aquire a copy. Malachi’s prophesies are being proven in this hapenings in the Church.

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