In this week’s 1P5 minute we tackle Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s Manifesto of Faith, as well as the rumors that former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick will be stripped of the clerical state as a consequence of his lifelong abuse of seminarians and minors.

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Transcript:

I’m Steve Skojec, and this is the OnePeterFive Minute.

Hello everyone, today is Tuesday, February 12, 2019, and we’re not even going to be close to a minute today, so avert your eyes from those clocks you see before you!

Here are this week’s top stories:

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has issued a Manifesto of Faith, citing increasing confusion about the doctrines of the Faith and that fact that: “Today, many Christians are no longer even aware of the basic teachings of the Faith, so there is a growing danger of missing the path to eternal life.”

Commentators have noted that Mueller appears to be offering course corrections on issues of particular concern from the pontificate of his former boss, Pope Francis, with a specific focus on:

The fundamental difference in the beliefs of Catholics than those of other religions, which stands in contrast to the pope’s recent joint statement with Islam.

A rejection of the allowance of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, in contrast to the permissiveness of Amoris Letitia and the papally-endorsed bishops guidelines that followed its publication.

A rejection of Communion for Protestants, in opposition to the pope’s refusal to issue a firm negative on intercommunion when asked directly by the Lutheran spouse of a Catholic if she could receive, telling her instead to “talk to the Lord, and then go forward”.

A rejection of the pope’s assertion in Amoris Letitia that “no one can be condemned forever” and his allegedly repeatedly stated beliefs that there is no hell.

A rejection of the relaxation of priestly celibacy or the possibility of female ordination.

The German Cardinal drives his points home by saying that “To keep silent about these and the other truths of the Faith and to teach people accordingly is the greatest deception against which the Catechism vigorously warns. It represents the last trial of the Church and leads man to a religious delusion, “the price of their apostasy” (CCC 675); it is the fraud of Antichrist.”

And yet, despite all these pokes in the direction of papal eyes, he never mentions the name of Francis. Not even once.

This may have earned him the ire of papal ally and hall of fame heretic Cardinal Walter Kasper, saying that Müller is spreading confusion and division with his quote unacceptable blanket statements and that the former CDF prefect is following in the path of Martin Luther.

[Record Scratch]

Yes. You heard that right. This friend of the papacy that celebrated the 500th anniversary of Luther’s so-called reformation, that put Martin Luther on an official Vatican stamp, that actually allowed the German section of Vatican Radio to release an image of the pope himself DRESSED UP LIKE MARTIN LUTHER, somehow thinks he can pretend that comparing anyone to Luther should be seen as an epithet by team Francis.

It’s as though when God said he was handing out brains they thought he said trains and said “No thanks, I’ll catch the next one.”

But what irritates me even more than the feigned clutching of pearls from the cardinal separated at birth from Dr. Ruth is that Cardinal Mueller waited until he was absolutely certain he was never going to have an important Vatican job again to start doing the job assigned to the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and, you know, actually defending the faith. He had the one position in all of Christendom that carried the most weight outside the papacy itself, but he was too busy throwing the dubia cardinals under the bus and refusing to be the “leader of a movement against the pope” to actually make a stand when it counted. And even now, he’s not calling the man out by name. It’s clear whose errors are being refuted, so can we please stop playing cute games where we need cracker jack box secret decoder rings to know the score?

Just once I want to see one of these prelates man up and say it, “The pope is the one causing all of this confusion, and my conscience compels me to speak because my loyalty is to Christ first.”

See how easy that was? I just did it, on camera, and no lightning struck, and the ground didn’t open up and swallow me. There aren’t even any locusts banging on my windows. It’s not so hard.

And in other news, the Spanish Language religion magazine Vida Nueva has reported that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith may be preparing to laicize former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick just as the February Vatican meeting on clerical sex abuse with all the episcopal conference heads from around the world is set to get underway.

The story, which has now been picked up by major American news outlets like Breitbart, does not cite sources for its claim, but says that the CDF is nearly finished with their examination of McCarrick’s case, and will be reaching a judgment over the most serious of his crimes of abuse in the coming days.

Critics of the move’s timing — and by critics I mean me, especially — are concerned that this is little more than a PR stunt at the expense of a used up power broker too radioactive to be of any value to Rome any more. After having just been told by prelates close to the pope to lower our expectations for the coming summit on clerical sex abuse, a McCarrick defrocking – while entirely appropriate considering his crimes – would look like little more than a ceremonial offering to the media gods in an attempt to overdeliver after rather emphatically underpromising.

I sincerely doubt that anyone will be fooled, but then again, people still put raisins in things that are perfectly fine without them, so anything is possible.

Until next time, I’m Steve Skojec, thanks for watching.