The Pillar: Card. Müller’s non-renewal at DDF followed financial investigation
The Pillar: “We’re a Catholic media project focused on smart, faithful, and serious journalism, from committed and informed Catholics who love the Church…” has just posted the following article on its website.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith were investigated in 2015, amid charges of significant financial improprieties in the Vatican department.
Link to article:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/card-mullers-non-renewal-at-ddf-followed
Cardinal Muller, the man who was laying down the law about me, ordering the Redemptorists to sideline me from ministry, and it transpires he had, among other financial improprieties, €200,000 of CDF money in his own personal account! When asked to explain, he passed it off as a clerical error! So that’s what I was dealing with.
In the words of Fr Ted: That money was only resting in my account.
Tony, I feel for you. And the hypocrisy!!
And such corruption in the higher echelons of our institutional church.
Extraordinary that there is such a dearth of comment in this forum on the shameful news of the financial shenanigans in the CDF by the former head, Cardinal Mullur who, when it seems Pope Francis decided not to extend his time with the CDF – and allowed him the questionable benefit of obscuring the reasons for his decision – set himself up as a leader of the opposition to Francis.
A recent posting on this site objecting to a statement by the ACP that it is unacceptable that any priest would refuse to give Communion because they had decided to examine the communicant’s conscience rather than their own attracted an instant dismissal from a suspiciously alert group of traditional Catholics who reacted critically to the ACP statement.
Extraordinary that not even one of the same cohort of individuals – ever ready to rush into comment on any perceived diminishment in clerical standards haven’t thought it worthwhile to raise their voices when a cardinal no less has shamed our church. Or is it because his shredded credibility as a cheer-leader against Francis’ reforms might damage the restoration of a Catholic past?
I was one of those who posted a comment about the ACP statement to which Fr Hoban refers in his comment. If by “suspiciously alert” he means to imply that traditional Catholics on this occasion mounted an organised protest, all I can say in reply is that no one invited me to take part in it!
Not for the first time, I was appalled that the ACP would publicly criticise a fellow priest for upholding Catholic teaching, and I posted a comment to express my support for the priest in question. I conferred with no one about it beforehand.
As for the rest of his comment, I humbly wish that both liberal and traditional Catholics would stop making their own leaders out to be heroes and the other leaders out to be villains.
It was a revelation to me that large sums of cash could be lying in desk drawers in the CDF – to be rushed into anyone’s bank account when an audit was threatened. That’s Dougaldom surely, the stuff of gross satire rather than respect for a ‘Holy’ institution?
What that seems to mean is that there is lots of money to be made in Catholic bureaucracy and authoritarianism, if you keep the whole thing ‘under wraps’. Who would have suspected that from Cardinal Muller’s cross-bedecked public persona?
As to the Cardinal treating a centuries-old conference table in the CDF HQ as though it was his own property – and giving it to a ‘friend’??? That too suggests that power does the strangest things to people. The cartoon qualities of the Vatican and its upper echelons are a gift to the media that keeps on giving.
Jim@5 it is surely completely obvious who the villains are in this particular case.
Reply to Paddy Ferry @ 7: The point I was trying to make was that both liberals and traditionalists have a habit of seizing on the reported failings of leaders from the other side, and not acknowledging the reported failings of their own leaders, and I was simply asking that this would stop.
Fr Hoban had taken traditionalists to task, for not weighing in with criticism of Cardinal Muller in this case, and that was the context of my reply. I was replying to Fr Hoban’s comment, not the article itself. I am in no position to judge the guilt or innocence of Cardinal Muller or any other church leader, and I would not presume to do so.
In general, I try to confine my occasional comments on this site to responding to ACP statements, or articles on the ACP site. There can be a thin line between that and personal criticism of the individuals concerned. I try not to cross that line, but perhaps I have not always succeeded.
Jim@8, I am puzzled as to how you can refer to “…the guilt or innocence of Cardinal Muller…”
Are you really serious?
And, though I am a great admirer of Pope Francis, I don’t think he did himself any credit by obscuring the reason why Muller was not reappointed as Prefect of the CDF.
I absolutely agree with everything Brendan has said @4 above.
I too was shocked that those of you who were so quick out of the blocks to condemn the ACP statement that Brendan refers too were completely silent on Muller’s crimes.
Time and again on this site, I have tried my best to make myself clear, and yet find myself trying to say the same thing two or more times, in different ways, because I receive responses which make it clear that I was not understood the first (or second) time.
I will try once more to reply to you, and I will leave it at that. I have no interest in Cardinal Muller, one way or the other. I was replying to what Fr Hoban had said about traditional Catholics. I am not trying to make a case that Cardinal Muller is innocent. I simply do not want to get involved in discussing him at all. No more than I want to discuss the reported failings of leaders on the liberal side. I am very uncomfortable making judgements about other people, because Jesus warned us not to do that. I have also learned over the years not to assume that what is in the public domain about individual cases represents the full facts, and that is another reason for withholding judgement.
I think perhaps it is time for me to be gone from this site. It has almost always been a dispiriting experience for me, and it seems that I have also managed to offend people like you. So, what is the point?
Before I go, I should, however, acknowledge that I have always found Liamy to be a courteous and fair moderator.
Indeed, why should we be discussing Cardinal Muller, who was generally disliked? But I do feel that Pope Francis is now impossibly old — 87. The traditional way of doing things, with conclaves, etc., needs to be overhauled. I am sad at the sudden loss of Noel Treanor, a grand man.
I have never been, nor have I ever applied for membership of The Association of Catholic Priests of Ireland. This website states that: ‘The ACP is an association for Catholic Priests who wish to have a forum, and a voice to reflect on, discuss and comment on issues affecting the Irish Church and society today. We welcome any feedback you may have.’
I presumed, maybe wrongly, that any priest and indeed anyone, was free to express a viewpoint, opinion or conviction provide he or she observed the norms to be observed when posting comments. I think it would be a great loss to informed debate and discussion if people didn’t share their views here and ‘feedback’ wasn’t welcomed on the great variety of articles and comments – some contrary to ACP’s constitution.
The only membership cards I ever had was one for the ‘Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers’ (ASW) and later one for ‘Technical Assistants and Supervisory Staff’ (TASS). Not yet ACP.