Cardinal Gerhard Müller may no longer be the Vatican’s doctrinal chief, but since being relieved of his position he has become, if anything, more outspoken. In recent days he has given two in-depth interviews, one to Life Site News and one to La Stampa. Those publications are generally seen as coming from opposite “sides” of the Church, and the content of the interviews suggests that Cardinal Müller may be trying to chart a third way through the troubled waters in which the Church finds herself at present. On the one hand, the cardinal in effect criticized Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, whose spectacular J’Accuse in August called for the Pope’s resignation. “No one has the right to indict the Pope or ask him to resign,” Cardinal Müller told La Stampa, following and adopting the precise juridical language – stato di accusa – in which interviewer Andrea Tornielli’s initial question was couched. For Müller, the Viganò dossier overstepped the bounds of submission to the Pope. On the other hand, the cardinal’s interview with Life Site News showed that Müller is ready to criticize the Pope over the McCarrick Affair, if only provisionally and indirectly. Müller said the Vatican under John Paul II should have investigated the rumours against McCarrick, and should not have made him a cardinal and Archbishop of Washington DC. But he also told Life Site that the “involved Church authorities” had questions to answer, if it is true that the Vatican knew of McCarrick’s misdeeds and that he nevertheless became a papal counselor: