At kath.net, the German site, there is a story that Card. Müller, former Prefect of the CDF and once Bishop of Regensburg, advises Bp. Strickland of Tyler NOT to resign.
Excerpt:
According to Catholic teaching, the Pope is by no means the Lord of the Church, but only as Christ’s representative for the universal Church, the first servant of his Lord, who had to say to Simon Peter, who had just been destined to become the rock of the Church: “Get behind me (Italian Indietro, the true indietrismo) [backwardism], because you have in mind not what God wants, but what people want” (Mt 16:23).
The Pope has no authority from Christ to bully and intimidate good bishops, modeled on Christ the Good Shepherd, who sanctify, teach and lead the flock of God in the name of Christ in accordance with the episcopal ideal of Vatican II, just because they are false friends denounce these good bishops to Francis as enemies of the Pope, while heretical and immoral bishops can do whatever they want or who harass the Church of Christ every day with some other stupidity.
Der Papst ist gemäß der katholischen Lehre keineswegs der Herr der Kirche, sondern nur als Stellvertreter Christi für die universale Kirche der erste Diener seines Herrn, der dem gerade zum Felsen der Kirche bestimmten Simon Petrus sagen musste: „Geh hinter mich (ital. Indietro, dem wahren Indietrismo), denn du hast nicht das im Sinn, was Gott will, sondern was die Menschen wollen.“ (Mt 16, 23).
Der Papst hat keine Vollmacht von Christus, gute Bischöfe nach dem Vorbild Christi, des guten Hirten, die im Einklang mit dem Bischofsideal des II. Vatikanums die Herde Gottes im Namen Christi heiligen, lehren und leiten, zu drangsalieren und einzuschüchtern, nur weil falsche Freunde diese guten Bischöfe bei Franziskus als Feinde des Papstes denunzieren, während häretische und unmoralische Bischöfe treiben können, was sie wollen, oder die jeden Tag die Kirche Christi mit einer andern Dummheit belästigen.
Der Papst ist gemäß der katholischen Lehre keineswegs der Herr der Kirche, sondern nur als Stellvertreter Christi für die universale Kirche der erste Diener seines Herrn, der dem gerade zum Felsen der Kirche bestimmten Simon Petrus sagen musste: „Geh hinter mich (ital. Indietro, dem wahren Indietrismo), denn du hast nicht das im Sinn, was Gott will, sondern was die Menschen wollen.“ (Mt 16, 23).
Der Papst hat keine Vollmacht von Christus, gute Bischöfe nach dem Vorbild Christi, des guten Hirten, die im Einklang mit dem Bischofsideal des II. Vatikanums die Herde Gottes im Namen Christi heiligen, lehren und leiten, zu drangsalieren und einzuschüchtern, nur weil falsche Freunde diese guten Bischöfe bei Franziskus als Feinde des Papstes denunzieren, während häretische und unmoralische Bischöfe treiben können, was sie wollen, oder die jeden Tag die Kirche Christi mit einer andern Dummheit belästigen.
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Imagine a Muller Papacy!
Akita. More and more.
I am glad Cardinal Müller is willing to make his comments public. It’s great when a good bishop supports another good bishop in private, but it’s a multiplier of good effect when done in public.
It’s not just what he is saying it’s how he is saying it. We appreciate his plain words. This is important information for Catholics to know and to have, in particular about the limits on papal authority, which do not extend to persecuting faithful bishops. One can only imagine how Rome is percolating.
He should have left off the last sentence as implicit.
He should avoid any direct meetings. Get sick or whatever and avoid the ad limina visit, if necessary. Any correspondence should be run through civil and canonical legal representation and deferred for evaluation to diocesan consultation and committees and then reply with form letters asking for more time, etc etc. Try to drag out the clock.
Good to see Cardinals speaking up with the Truth.
I am hoping and praying that at the next Conclave, inspired by the Holy Ghost, conservative Cardinals will speak up and move the majority to elect a traditional Pope.
And in the irony of all ironies, National ‘Catholic’ Reporter online and America Magazine online both are carrying articles suggesting that if Bishop Strickland resists this would be disobedience.
Make’m walk you out. My sister worked at a catholic hospital for 33 years. Worked in the lab. They told her she needed the experimental immunotherapy injections or she would have to quit. She made them walk her out. The security guard apologized but she demanded. “Walk me out!”
The weaponization of the evangelical counsel of obedience is a sacrilege. It must be resisted, boldly and unequivocally rejected.
God bless Bishop Strickland and Cardinal Muller. Resistance is building to the thugs. Time to take the Church back for Christ.
Tyler Texas now holds the attention of the highest levels of the Catholic Church. It will be very interesting to see what if anything Pope Francis does now concerning the matter. One thing that everyone agrees on is that this Pope is a very highly skilled and ruthless score-settler. As things stand now, this is a public embarrassment to his iron rule. Can he possibly let that stand?
I agree with Uxixu: Bishop Strickland should take all possible (moral) measures that are in the book to resist an ultimate decision against him, including using every tool in canon law to slow it down. And to the extent that the actions (and methods) being taken against him are patently unjust (which is what I assume but he knows for sure), to that extent it would also be upright to resist by all of the methods that the dissenters / resisters have shown us work, as long as he uses them within moral boundaries, (like missing the ad limina visit because he is in surgery (surely there is SOME surgery you have been putting off…etc). Every licit technique, and every outside the box technique that is not intrinsically disordered or an actual violation of licit law (including permissible exceptions to those laws).
And I agree with teomatteo: make them walk you out. There is NOTHING to be gained by going along with something like “the pope requests that you submit your resignation”. Refusing that isn’t disobedience. Even if the pope “requires” that you submit your resignation, that too is (in my opinion) does not require your giving it: saying “I resign” means your voluntarily relinquishing your office, and Strickland should not voluntarily do so. He should make them use (legal) force, rather than helping them.
As things stand now, this is a public embarrassment to his iron rule. Can he possibly let that stand?
The pope can let it stand if he also lets the commotion die down, i.e. get the issue out of the spotlight. He can let it stand if he wants to act justly. It is only if he views his “needs” the way a bully views his “needs” for public humiliation of others.
Timothy Flanders at One Peter Five writes of Bishop Strickland potentially being deposed, “If he refuses to submit, he would manfully resist the Vatican regime of iconoclasm and the faithful would rally around him.” I greatly hope that if Bishop Strickland is deposed, he would refuse to give up control of the diocese. I presume that from the point of view of American law, a foreign head of state has no power to remove Bishop Strickland from presidency of an American diocesan corporation, possession of the episcopal residence, control of the diocese’s property, etc. Is there any reason why Bishop Strickland could not just squat, and Bergoglio wouldn’t be able to do anything about it except pound sand?
Over the years a number of plaintiffs’ lawyers in the U.S. have attempted to add the Holy See as a defendant in sex-abuse lawsuits, and various court decisions have gone the Vatican’s way on the theory that local priests and bishops are not actually direct employees of the pope. But the Holy See is playing with fire if they think they can start operating as if a bishop is a mere employee terminable at the pope’s whim. By doing so they have would be subverting the very principles that have allowed them to escape civil liability in this country. Not that they care. Pope Francis is a shoot-from-the-hip, consequences-shmonsequences kinda guy likely not the least bit concerned about the legal ramifications of his actions.
It’s always refreshing when someone speaks the plain truth as Cardinal Müller does here, especially when there are so many who praise the Emperor’s clothes in a servile, flattering manner.
The issue at hand, however, is not the truth of his statements but what will any of them do when the Pope deposes this good Bishop? Words are cheap. What will they DO?
I don’t understand how after the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XI, spanning some 35 years, the College of Cardinals elected Jorge Bergoglio.
[How did Biden get elected? Seriously, I come from a US state that has a caucus system. I learned from a young age that elections are won by the a) well organized and b) more determined. In caucuses, it was always the small group that stayed till the last dog was hung and went to ever group and worked them and worked them and worked them until they wore people down.]
Consider the case of George Errington, Archbishop of Trebizond in partibus an expert canonist in the days before a coherent codification. Pope Pius IX tried to persuade him to resign his coadjutorship of Westminster after he had fallen out badly, three times with Cardinal Wiseman. He saw the pope on three successive days, privately in the papal office; it was said that the raised voices could be heard in the anteroom, but he said the pope would have to dismiss him, as to resign would suggest that he was in the wrong. And Bl Pius IX did dismiss him on July 22 1860, despite knowing that in (then) canon law he had no power to do so. Errington accepted this because he had sworn an oath of allegiance to the pope.
re: aam. “‘Like it or not, St. John Paul clearly gave red hats to people who were not in sync with his views,’ Russell Shaw, the author of Eight Popes and the Crisis of Modernity, told the Register.” “‘Benedict XVI certainly … appointed cardinals who did not correspond to his ideas in everything,’ acknowledged Peter Seewald, the author of a sweeping two-volume biography of the German Pope.” (National Catholic Register, “Appointment of Cardinals Is Personal for Francis — Were John Paul II and Benedict XVI Any Different?” by Joan Frawley Desmond; June 10, 2022). Perhaps if John Paul II and Benedict XVI had appointed cardinals who shared their ideas, such cardinals would have elected someone similar to John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Errington accepted this because he had sworn an oath of allegiance to the pope.
I am most definitely no expert on something like this, but I would have thought that any ordinary “allegiance” sworn to the pope would encompass lawful orders, and not encompass unlawful orders. I don’t think an order to resign when the bishop has done nothing warranting his leaving his office would be a lawful order. Request all you like, a request isn’t an order.
I greatly hope that if Bishop Strickland is deposed, he would refuse to give up control of the diocese. I presume that from the point of view of American law, a foreign head of state has no power to remove Bishop Strickland from presidency of an American diocesan corporation, possession of the episcopal residence, control of the diocese’s property, etc.
As far as I am aware, in US law, all Catholic dioceses are constituted as a “corporation sole”, which is a unique corporation in which the bishop is the SOLE member. The corporation may own the property of the diocese, but as sole member/officer/director, he decides how the property is to be used. He doesn’t “preside” over a group, he IS the authoritative group. This should mean that a pope cannot dismiss him from being the head of the corporation, which is a US domestic corporation, merely because the pope decides to. However, you need to ask the question: how did the bishop get to BE the head of the corporation? Whatever that mechanism is, under US law, I would be surprised if that there is no corresponding mechanism for removing a bishop (e.g. if he is elderly and noncompos mentis, or if convicted of serious crimes and thrown in prison, OR if he is dismissed from his post by the pope?) It might literally depend on how the articles of incorporation are written.
In fact, maybe Strickland’s best bet right now is to literally re-write any articles of incorporation so as to give himself maneuvering room and a bargaining chip with Francis’s messenger-boys. I still doubt whether he can indefinitely prevent having to hand over the goods of the diocese, but…popes can die with unfinished business.
But in no way would I suggest he do something that gets him excommunicated.
If he refuses to resign… that’s one thing. That’s within his power. If he’s formally deposed and uses American civil law to circumvent canon law as proposed by a couple people above, I’m pretty sure that would flirt with schism.
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