Edward Pentin: Cardinal Müller Issues ‘Manifesto of Faith’

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Cardinal Gerhard Müller.

The former Vatican doctrinal head upholds key teachings in the face of ‘growing confusion’ about Church doctrine and a ‘growing danger’ that people are ‘missing the path to eternal life.’

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register, 2/8/19

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has issued a forthright “manifesto of faith,” calling primarily on Church leaders to fulfil their obligation to lead people to salvation in the face of “growing confusion” about Church doctrine.

In a four-page public testimony (see below) released in multiple languages Feb. 8, and whose title is taken from the Gospel of John “Let not your heart be troubled!”, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reasserts many key teachings of the faith, reminding clergy and laity it is up to “shepherds” to “guide those entrusted to them on the path of salvation.”

“Today, many Christians are no longer even aware of the basic teachings of the Faith,” the German cardinal laments, “so there is a growing danger of missing the path to eternal life.”

Written in response to requests from “many bishops, priests, religious and lay people,” the cardinal’s testimony comes as the Church awaits the Feb. 21-24 Vatican summit on clergy sexual abuse, and following statements and documents from the Pope down that many practicing faithful have, at times, found confusing, disorienting and inconsistent with the Church’s teaching.

Cardinal Müller recalls that the “very purpose” of the Church is to lead humanity to Jesus Christ and underlines the importance of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a “safe standard for the doctrine of the faith” that was written to counter a “dictatorship of relativism.”

He then proceeds to quote copiously from the Catechism, interspersing passages with uncompromising commentary on what he sees as a crisis of confusion and disorientation in the Church.

The German cardinal urges the faithful to “resist” with “clear resolve” a “relapse into ancient heresies,” which view Jesus Christ as “only a good person, brother and friend, prophet and moralist.”

He stresses that the Church, founded by Christ as a “visible sign and tool of salvation,” does not “reflect herself but the light of Christ which shines on her face.”

She is “not a man-made association whose structure its members voted into being at their will. It is of divine origin,” he explains.

He underlines how the mediation of faith is “inextricably bound up with the human credibility of its messengers, who in some cases have abandoned the people entrusted to them, unsettling them and severely damaging their faith.”

He cites holy Scripture, warning against those “who do not listen to the truth and who follow their own wishes, who flatter their ears because they cannot endure sound doctrine.”

Cardinal Müller, who served as CDF prefect under Benedict XVI and Pope Francis from 2012 to 2017, goes on to reassert that if Holy Communion is received unworthily — such as by some divorced and civilly remarried persons or those not in full communion with the Church — they will not be brought to salvation.

He underscores the Church’s commandment to go to confession at least once a year, explains the impossibility of ordaining women to the priesthood, and warns that a person who dies in mortal sin without repentance will be forever separated from God. The moral law, he says, is a “liberating truth” and the path of salvation which “may not be relativized.”

The cardinal chastises bishops who “prefer to be politicians” rather than proclaim the Gospel, saying it leads many to wonder what the nature of the Church’s purpose is.

He also reminds the faithful of the last judgment, the “narrow gate” to heaven, and the “dreadful possibility” that a person who remains opposed to God to the end of their life “condemns himself immediately and forever.”

 

Silence: Greatest Deception

Responding to criticism that many pastors and bishops are not teaching the hard truths of the faith, Cardinal Müller warns that to “keep silent” about these truths is “the greatest deception” — as vigorously warned about in the Catechism.

“It represents the last trial of the Church and leads man to a religious delusion, ‘the price of their apostasy;’ it is the fraud of Antichrist,” he says, quoting again from the Catechism and echoing what Dutch Cardinal Willem Eijk said last year during the controversy over Holy Communion for Protestant spouses.

“He will deceive those who are lost by all means of injustice,” Cardinal Müller adds, quoting from St. Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, “for they have closed themselves to the love of the truth by which they should be saved.”

He closes his testimony by reminding that all the faithful must “recall these fundamental truths by clinging to what we ourselves have received.”

And quoting St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he calls on bishops and priests to “preach the Word in season and out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”

Cardinal Müller concludes with a prayer to Mary, the Mother of God, imploring her for the grace “to remain faithful without wavering to the confession of the truth about Jesus Christ.”

Manifesto of Faith by Cardi…

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/cardinal-mueller-issues-manifesto-of-faith