Yesterday I mulled over the draft of the proposed reform of the Roman Curia. I’m not optimistic.
Today I see in the National Catholic Register (thanks M) an interview by Ed Pentin with Gerhard Card. Müller.
Müller opines…
PENTIN: What do you think of synodality and this “synodal path” as a means of governing the Church? Do you think there’s a danger, as some believe, that it could bring alien ideas into the Church?
MÜLLER: I think it’s very idealistic. There’s no biblical foundation for it. We speak of collegiality of the bishops, but we now see in the so-called reform of the Curia that the Curia is in danger of turning into any other secular institution. All power is concentrated in the Secretariat of State. They don’t speak about the participation of the Roman Church or the Petrine authority of the Pope. They’re suppressing the word “congregation” [used for Vatican departments with executive authority], which is a translation of synodus in Greek.
So, on the one hand, they’re suppressing the synodality of the Holy Roman Church, the College of Cardinals, and, on the other hand, they’re converting the institution of the Curia into simply a bureaucracy, into only functionalism and not an ecclesiastical institute. We have a common responsibility to be involved in the life of the Church, that is true, but we have had this universal participation since the beginning of the Church, for 2,000 years.
We cannot now invent the Church as if the Church is old-fashioned and now to be refashioned according to those calling themselves progressives, who want to build the Church according to their ideas.
And he has some pointed words about the present German influence and the Instrumentum Laboris for the Amazoniana Synod.
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