From Vaticanista, John Allen in the National Fishwrap.
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Although speculation about who’s in line for top Vatican jobs is a favorite indoor sport in Catholicism, usually to be taken with a grain of salt, you can sometimes tell a rumor is serious when pot shots start falling on the would-be nominee.
Levada will turn 76 in June, and it’s long been rumored that Müller, 64, is a top candidate to take over. This week, traditionalist Catholics in Italy began circulating e-mails suggesting that Müller, a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a lifelong friend of Pope Benedict XVI, is not a man of “secure doctrine.”
Specifically, the e-mails faulted Müller for espousing suspect positions on the virginity of Mary (which he said in a 2003 book shouldn’t be understood in a “physiological” sense), the Eucharist (Müller has apparently counseled against using the term “body and blood of Christ” to describe the consecrated bread and wine at Mass), and ecumenism (last October, Müller declared that Protestants are “already part of the church” founded by Christ.)
Whatever evaluation one makes of those points, the e-mails suggest that rumors around Müller’s possible appointment have set off alarms in traditionalist circles.
Müller has long been something of a paradox. In Germany, he’s seen as a staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy, often at odds with the liberal reform group “We Are Church”, and he clearly enjoys papal favor.
Aside from the fact that Müller is the bishop of the pope’s home diocese, where Benedict’s brother Geörg still resides, he’s also the editor of Benedict’s “Opera Omnia,” a comprehensive collection of all the pope’s writings.
Müller himself is a prolific author, having written more than 400 works on a wide variety of theological topics.
Despite his broadly conservative reputation, Müller actually earned his doctorate in 1977 under then-Fr. Karl Lehmann, who went on to become the cardinal of Mainz and the leader of the moderate wing of the German bishops’ conference. Müller’s dissertation was on the famed German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. [Bonhoeffer sounds more Catholic now compared to most of our theologians here in the Philippines! Ha!]
Moreover, Müller is a close personal friend of the renowned Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, considered the father of liberation theology. Every year since 1998, Müller has travelled to Peru to take a course from Gutiérrez, and has spent time living with farmers in a rural parish near the border with Bolivia.
In 2008, he accepted an honorary doctorate from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, which is widely seen as a bastion of the progressive wing of the Peruvian church. On the occasion, he praised Guttierez and defended his theology.
“The theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, independently of how you look at it, is orthodox because it is orthopractic,” he said. “It teaches us the correct way of acting in a Christian fashion since it comes from true faith.” [But Gutierrez sees "doing theology" as a way to liberate the social indifference in the world. This is not the aim of theology. It is salvation of souls not just social bondage. Real theology is aimed at both, with the ultimate goal of saving souls.]
In the same speech, Müller described "neo-liberal capitalism" as the "infamy of our age."
All that suggests the church might be in for some surprises should Müller indeed inherit the Vatican’s top doctrinal job.
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Keep tab folks and watch out.
Rumor mills in the Vatican are strong and credible.
I hope those protecting the pope are not ill-advised and this part of the bishop's track record does not get left out of his dossier, just like what happened to the dossier of Archbishop Tagle of Manila. Remember how some things were conveniently left out?
You are right. Bonhoeffer's theology is more Catholic than much what has been bandied after Vatican II
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