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The Misperceptions of Cardinal Mueller

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JMJ

Cardinal Mueller gave an interview recently and gave his opinion on the "situation of the SSPX".

His Eminence puts forward a number of assertions that frankly confused me. So I've marked the assertions and will give my thoughts for each.

      • JB: The situation of the SSPX remains a pastoral and theological challenge. What, in your judgment, is the most fruitful way for the Church to approach dialogue with the Lefebvrian movement while preserving unity and doctrinal integrity?
      • CGLM: There have been — and continue to be — endless dialogues with this group, but they simply circle around. 
        • There is no way around recognising the Second Vatican Council as the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, in accordance with the Catholic hermeneutic and epistemology already fully articulated by Irenaeus of Lyon.[7]
        • The foolish talk of a “sede vacante” of the Chair of Peter [1], 
        • calls for a revision of the Council [2], 
        • and the claim that the Lefebvrists are the last bastion of true Catholicity must finally come to an end.  [3]
        • Even if they are right to place their finger on the wounds inflicted on the Body of Christ by self-appointed reformers in the style of Modernism, there is never a justification for distancing oneself from the Catholic Church [4]
        •  — even though the Church is a mixture of saints and sinners, as St Augustine emphasised against the strict and self-righteous Donatist sect. Against Petilianus, the highly educated leader of the Donatists, he declared: “It was not we who separated ourselves from you — you separated yourselves from us. You withdrew from communion with the universal Church” (Contra litteras Petiliani II, 38). [5]
      • Now is the kairos [Right or Critical Moment link] for all Catholics to reunite in the truth of Christ, who in the person of St Peter and his successor — Pope Leo XIV — has established an enduring principle and foundation of unity in faith and sacramental communion (Vatican II, Lumen gentium 18). [6]
      • Source: Interview: Cardinal Müller on Europe, Islam, the SSPX and the German Synodal Path
Tradicat Reflections

  1. The SSPX is not sedevacantist, so the "sede vacante" statement is incongruent with the actual position of the SSPX.
  2. "Calls for revision of the Council", makes me wonder if there has ever been a council teaching that has been clarified afterwards. The key thing that is different from 1974 is that the SSPX is no longer alone in its criticism of elements of the pastoral teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
  3. I don't know of the SSPX officially stating that it is the "last bastion of true Catholicity".  I do know and have met lay people who, particularly decades ago, have made these assertions.  As mentioned, as far as I know this is not and has never been the position of the SSPX.
  4. Aside from the disobedience of 1988, it was more of a question of (like today) the Hierarchy wanting the death of everything pre-conciliar.
  5. So ... here's the thing. Like in #4, it wasn't that the SSPX / Traditional Catholics wanted to leave the Church.  They wanted to simply hold on to what they had been taught for the decades previous to the Second Vatican Council.  It wasn't that we wanted to leave, its that 'they' wanted to push us out.
  6. I agree that we are at, yet another, Kairos moment in this crisis of the Catholic Church and that the Vicar of Christ is Pope Leo XIV.   Of course, we've been through this before.  The Vicar of Christ is the principle and foundation of the Unity (Faith and Government) of the Catholic Church.
  7. I missed this point. ... As far as I know, the SSPX recognizes that Second Vatican Council as the 21st Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church.  That is not the point, it was called by a Pope, attended by the Cardinals and Bishops.  What is for discussion is the theological note of the council and its 'teachings'. What elements are simply pastoral and therefore eminently changeable, what elements are infallible.  Much of this has been discussed and answered already.  So I am again befuddled by Card. Mueller's statements.
So ... Cardinal Mueller makes some unusual statements that don't apply to the SSPX and for a Cardinal are some what surprising in that they don't reflect my understanding / knowledge of the position and history of the SSPX.

Well we know that the SSPX needs more Auxiliary Bishops (I vote for 7) and that the continual rejection of Traditional Catholics as well as Pre-Conciliar Teachings is not a tenable situation.

So we just have to keep praying and working for the Church.

P^3

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