Robert Royal at The Catholic Thing gets to the nub of the matter in regard to Cardinal Mueller’s Manifesto:
Benedict XVI remarked in a 2010 interview that it’s puzzling how Catholics who have attended Catholic schools for a dozen years or more often seem to emerge with a sympathy for Islam or a basic acquaintance with Buddhism, but without much loyalty toward or knowledge of their own faith.
This is more than an educational problem. It goes to one of the central questions about the very nature of Christianity. As Mueller continues in that sentence I quoted above about the loss of basic truths, “so there is a growing danger of missing the path to eternal life.”
And so we confront something that has fallen by the wayside in much modern Christian thought. Is Christ what He Himself told us He is: the Way, the Truth, and the Life? And not in some vague sentimentalized way in which we all are – eventually and indulgently – saved, whatever we think and do. But in the, yes, merciful, but also demanding – sometimes even threatening – way of the real Jesus in the Gospels, who speaks of Gehenna “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” (Mk. 9:48)
Go here to read the rest. Marching through the Gospels is the desperate desire of Christ to save as many as He could. All Catholics should feel that desire to spread salvation. That such desire is so lacking among clergy and laity helps explain all that is wrong with both groups.
Muller’s Manifesto was a well deserved bow shot against Pope Francis who is, to say the very least, a bad shepherd leading us away from the truths of the Catholic Church which began in earnest following Vatican II.
The big question is what will be Pope Francis follow-up on this? My guess is nothing, just more silence. Or perhaps some kind of punishment for Cardinal Muller.
Pope Francis is all about global politics and the New World Order, not about the Catholic Faith. If anything, Pope Francis is out to destroy it. Hopefully, the Muller Manifesto will have an effect on individual priests, Bishops and Cardinals who will take it seriously. The other thought I had was that Muller is clearly putting his hat in the ring to be the next Pope. Not a bad idea in my opinion.
Many years ago, our new priest (military chaplain in mid 90’s) began to preach that there wasn’t a hell and people didn’t need to go to confession (strange, I know). We had a parish meeting where one person asked him, “Then why did Jesus die on the cross? The Bible says he did that to save us from our sins, right?”. Silence filled the parish hall. He responded by saying it was more complicated than that at which point he lost our support. This muddled headed thinking and confusion about God’s Mercy and Justice has been going on for years (centuries, really). It is a false dilemma: God is both Merciful and Just. It is not an either / or proposition. Cardinal Muller has properly focused on the true balance and the purpose of the Catholic Church – to be the Body of Christ and preach the Gospel of Jesus to all the earth until the end of time.
Pope Benedict knows what is a poorly kept secret. His observation is particularly true for those who are Jesuit educated. I concluded many years ago that I would rather send my kids to public school where they could see the attacks on their faith coming and defend it head on. The added benefit was that I would be their primary teacher of the faith. This was far preferable to sending them to a phony Catholic school where the attacks were friendly fire and the opportunities to stand for the faith were actually less frequent. The outcome is that all of my children are strong in their faith while all of my siblings who sent their kids to 12 years or more of “Catholic” schooling have almost all lost their faith.
Muller’s Manifesto was a well deserved bow shot against Pope Francis
Yes, that’s what Walter Kasper thought (he said, in his best imitation of Denholm Elliot).
Allah has no son to love, nor to love him. Love is the Holy Spirit WHO proceeds from the Father and the Son and is LOVE. The Holy Trinity is the First Family. The Holy Family is the second Trinity. Jesus Christ was born as the Son of God. Jesus Christ died as the Son of Man. Jesus Christ is the revelation of God, His Father in heaven. Everything Jesus did Jesus did for His Father. Everything Mary, Christ’s mother did Mary did for Jesus WHO redeemed all creation and presented creation, especially human beings, mankind to His Father. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Life and the Truth to His Father in heaven. from The Catholic Thing
There is much wrong with Vatican II, but one of the things that it properly brings forth is the Missionary Mandate of the Church — that the primary activity of the Church in the world is to evangelize all people and bring all peoples into the Church. Unfortunately, like other deficiencies that existed in the activity of the Church prior to the Council, it grew much much worse after. It has been especially undermined during the current pontificate.
While this is very much an educational problem (in the exact same way that public school educated students hardly have an education in Western Society or a lick of sense about them when they graduate) for it speaks to an abandonment and rejection of core sociological values that have existed for millennia, it also represents an embracing of that metaphysical hopelessness of the 20th century. It is not simply the forgetting of Christ Crucified, but a replacing of the light of the cross with a dark spirit that says that there is nothing beyond the here and now — that there is no communion in truth and being with the other only an accompaniment of the other in mutually exclusive experiences of existence.
A Catholic school in name only, especially a high school, can destroy young peoples Faith. Prayer, example, and an active Catholic spouse can bring them back.