Cardinal Müller: US Rebel Sisters Have Lost Their Identity -- More Women in the International Theology Commission

(Rome) The Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, contrary to what is   widespread  of certain circles in the United States in connection with the rebellious nuns of the LCWR, that the Roman Curia is misogynistic. "We are not misogynist!" The cardinal said in a conversation with the woman's section of the Osservatore Romano . It is a matter, the rebellious nuns "to help them rediscover their identity." Cardinal Müller also announced that at the request of Pope Francis, the number of women in the International Theological Commission will rise "from two to five or six".

Since May 2012  a monthly supplement appears in the main Italian edition of Osservatore Romano   Women, Church, World . In the latest issue a conversation on  1 September  took place with Prefect Cardinal Müller. The former Bishop of Regensburg announced that the proportion of female members of the International Theological Commission shall tripled. This was the wish of Pope Francis, the Cardinal said in an interview with the responsible editor of the women's supplement, the historian Lucetta Scaraffia.

The International Theological Commission is one of the "young" institutions of the Catholic Church. It was established in 1969 by Pope Paul VI., as a result of the first Synod of Bishops, which took place in the fall of 1967. The task of the 30 strong Commissio Internationalis Theologica (CTI) is to "assist in the investigation of doctrinal issues that are of greater importance" to the Church's Magisterium, particularly the CDF. Therefore, it has been presided  the Prefect of the CDF  Cardinal Müller, since 2012.  Since 2011, it's Secretary-General has been  the French Dominican Father Serge-Thomas Bonino.

Increasing Share of Women in Theological Commission to "Five or Six"

The members are appointed by the pope for five years. The 8th Quinquennium ending in 2013 to be reappointed by Pope Francis has not yet occurred. The period 2009-2013  had  two female members. It is the German Domgatic Theologian and Professor at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, Barbara Hallensleben, and the American nun and professor at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake (Mundelein Seminary) of Chicago, Sr. Sara Butler.   Sister Butler belongs to the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (MSBT), an American woman religious order which was recognized by the Holy See in 1932, but  whose origins already   go back to the year 1909. She teaches Christology, Sacramentology, Christian Anthropology  and Mariology in Chicago.

The appointment of the members of the 9th Quinquennium of the International Theological Commission by Pope Francis is imminent, as Scaraffia has reported. She only addressed Cardinal Müller indirectly at  this point : "He assured me the newly anticipated International Theological Commission, which is to be appointed by the Pope soon, will have a higher proportion of women than the outgoing: It seems to me as I understand that they will increase the number from two to five or six."

Accept Women in Their Character, Not as an Imitation of Men

The cardinal stressed importance of women in the Church and that they are to be recognized in their individuality in the Church, not in imitation of the male model. The Cardinal made a special point to emphasize that the Church is "mother" and must not be an institution because an institution could not love you, but a mother can love.

The Prefect also spoke to Scaraffia  about the American rebels,  Sisters of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). He himself had overseen  "complex negotiations" recently. Above all is to remember that it is "not all American women religious" who are  the rebellious nuns, but a group of religious women in North America who have partnered in the LCWR. The CDF had received "many letters" from other sisters that belong to the same Order, "but on the direction" of the rebel sisters are very disappointed and "deeply grieved".

Loss of Identity: Rebel Sisters Have "No More Vocations"

"Serious doctrinal problems" have reigned for years among the rebellious nuns of the LCWR  in the field of Catholic doctrine, Church discipline, liturgy, morality, right to life, homosexuality and gender ideology. Cardinal Müller  recalled in this connection: "In addition, these orders have no more vocations. You run the risk of disappearing. We have especially tried to build less conflictual relations and reduce tensions, thanks to Bishop Sartain," leading the talks on behalf of the CDF and is "a very gentle man," says  the Cardinal. The general aim was clear to the rebels sisters that "we are not hostile to women and do not want to eat a woman every day!  Without a doubt we have different understandings of religious life. We hope to help them rediscover their identity," Cardinal Müller.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Osservatore Romano

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

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"The Catholic Church is the Enemy" The Dictatorship of Relativism -- Document of the International Theological Commission

(Rome) on 16 January 2014   the Pontifical International Theological Commission published an extensive and remarkable document  "The Triune God, Unity of People. Christian Monotheism Against Violence ".  [It's not finished being translated] It is the result of five years of work that has been reviewed and approved by the Prefect of the CDF, the Cardinal designate Gerhard Ludwig Müller. "I'm afraid to make a reliable forecast, if I assume that this long and complex document finds few readers, and low media coverage and therefore will soon be forgotten," said the religious sociologist Massimo Introvigne. "This is bad: because this great work, desired and ordered by Benedict XVI.  and now completed under Pope Francis, is of really remarkable quality, which answers and denounces point by point the  unprecedented aggression against the Church by the prevailing anti-clerical culture ," said Introvigne.

"Catholic Christianity" is the "intransigent obstacle"  in this fight. The document describes the Catholic church as an enemy of the prevailing secular current, setting the tone with dogged, influential forces. This is not only in universities, but also in much of the media.

How should the church be destroyed? By making her responsible for all the worst atrocities in history. Blame is their absolute truth claim, which is guaranteed by God the Creator. A truth that can be known by reason and by the nature. This Catholic rejection of relativism and monotheism are to blame for bigotry and intolerance.

Because of their Claim to Truth, the Church is to Blame for all the Crimes of Humanity

A total relativism, says the document, seeking  for a unity of thinking, which each and everyone would have to submit. A thinking that leads to the dictatorship of relativism that attacks anyone who thinks that there is the truth. The truth is instead referred to "explicitly as a radical threat to the autonomy of the subject" and an opening to freedom. This was especially so because everyone is entitled to objective and universal truth that applies to everyone and is accessible to the human mind, is immediately challenged with an exclusive claim by a subject or group. This would, according to critics, lead to the justification of hegemony over man,   that it does not give. Truth is thus brought in inseparable connection to power, so they each claim and it is seen as a template for conflict and violence between people.

For the dictatorship of relativism, the Church was the main responsible for this violence because it teaches monotheism.But if there is only one God, then there is only one truth. If there is, however, different gods, then there are also different truths. Only the polytheism guarantee relativism. The new ideology thus represents a radical reversal compared to the previous history of religion represents, and the secular, the previously considered monotheism as progress towards polytheism. This "reversal of the modern frame is unexpected: now monotheism is considered archaic and despotic, polytheism as creative and tolerant."

Commission rejects Equating  Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Certainly Christians have succumbed to the temptation of violence over the course  of history,  but significantly less than others, and especially far less than the anti-Christian ideologies. However, to make the Christians but also responsible for the massacres that were committed by other religions, harkens back to either category, which has been discussed by the history of religion for some time: the category of the "three great monotheistic religions." Although this expresses some truth, but treats Judaism, Islam and Christianity as a whole, although they represent three totally different realities. However, the dictatorship of relativism sums it under the heading of "monotheism". Even Islamist suicide bombers can then be dialectically pushed to Christianity.

It belongs to the special merits of the new document to reject the generalized classification of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the big three "monotheistic religions".It's particularly meritorious, because an undifferentiated equation is also common in parts of the Catholic world.

The purpose behind why the new radical secularism picks this reworked old theory is not inter-religious dialogue, which it was originally intended, but to attack religion, whose main purpose again,  is the attack against Christianity and to be exact, the attack against the Catholic Church. "We can not but hide the fact that in an intellectually relevant part of our western society, the aggressiveness with which this 'theorem' is put forward, is mainly focused on a radical indictment of Christianity," says the document. "The systematic identification of Catholic Christianity as an entrenched obstacle in the fight against monotheism," the widespread religious violence in the world leave, despite not a little remarkable.

Refutes Allegations of Relativists Point by Point

The document has refuted point by point the accusations of the relativists. This includes the interpretation of some warlike and bloody events of the Old Testament, for which the proof is provided that they fit into a specific historical context, are to be read as metaphors for the struggle against the devil and moral evil, and especially that they were then overcome by the message of the Gospel. In a not very easy to read part of the document, which follows the Magisterium of Benedict XVI., it is pointed out that in Christianity, a distinction between religion and politics was permitted for the first time in history, so that the autonomy of politics is established and overcame the temptation of theocracy. 

The document also rejects the claim that polytheism is tolerant. In the cultural climate of polytheist religions, the most horrible massacres against the followers of other religions were committed. The equation of polytheism with tolerance sounds downright foolish. Even "the polytheistic religion of the Roman Empire, despite the extraordinary modernity of its understanding of citizenship  and its multi-ethnic and multi-religious figure, persecuted Christianity with specific hardness, which had made itself guilty  of only refusing the adulation of the emperor as a divine figure."  The Christian response was the nonviolent witness and the willingness to accept martyrdom, as the document recalls.

Modern violent ideologies are the polytheism of today

A fortiori the modern ideologies were bearers "of a growing and worrying lifestyle and behaviors," which are characterized by "spontaneous, immediate and destructive" force. A violence that is self-conscious of their less and less and even "ethically justified" by law and approved. The ideologies, especially the destructive 20th Century, represent, in fact, the new polytheism, in which "the man who is disposed to the good Creator God hostile in his possession" as He "to become a" perverse God "is who misuses his power over his fellow man. From the polytheism of the Nazi double of the "perverse God," is the result of original sin does not bode well for the peaceful coexistence of people can come, as the document notes.

The Goal is the Elimination of God and the Denial of Freedom in the Name of Freedom

The aggression against the Catholic Church and Christians is based on the "prejudice that is typical of the rationalist model, according to which there is also an existential and social level, only one form to affirm the truth: the denial of freedom or the elimination of the opponent. "It derives a target of eliminating God from and sometimes ingratiating, sometimes violent enforcement of atheism, including the consequent denial of freedom.

The removal of God on the basis of a "naturalistic" reason, often combined with a "biological" solution of human freedom. According to this perspective, our brains have only thought of God. A process that is associated with a particular "stage of evolution".

Eliminate Religion as a "Pathology" to Make Room for the "Perverse God"

The religion is therefore a pathology, that must be purged. The future that is formed by the ideologies of humanity, is a future of violence and death. "Today we live in," concludes the document, "a time of persecution" of the Church. This persecution must be borne, in anticipation of the "hoped-for conversion for all." For the patience to endure this tribulation, we are indebted to many brothers and sisters who are already suffering because of their Christian faith. They give the decisive answer to the question of the meaning of Christian mission for all. They are already opening the way with their courage  to a different future in the relationship between religion and violence among people. The document refers to the need, to call upon  the Virgin Mary to intercede in a special way, as she is the indispensable guardian of the new time and its spiritual fruits.

The German translation of the document is currently only available to the introduction. The overall translation is soon to be submitted.

Text: NBQ / Giuseppe Nardi
image: archdiocese of Cologne
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches....
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