Last Friday, Cardinal Gerhard Müller issued a four-page “Manifesto of Faith” addressing today’s major doctrinal controversies. “In the face of growing confusion about the doctrine of the Faith,” he writes, “many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church have requested that I make a public testimony about the truth of revelation.”
The text – essentially a gloss on the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) – is intended as a positive proclamation of the Catholic faith. But it gives a negative judgment on the new approach to the Eucharist fostered by Pope Francis. “From the internal logic of the sacrament,” Cardinal Müller argues, “it is understood that civilly remarried divorcees, whose sacramental marriage exists before God, as well as those Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Faith and the Church, just as all who are not properly disposed, cannot receive the Holy Eucharist fruitfully (CCC 1457) because it does not bring them to salvation.” Anticipating accusations of harshness, he adds: “To point this out corresponds to the spiritual works of mercy.”
