More on Müller

Following on from a post yesterday of the new CDF Prefect, there was an interview on Vatican Radio with Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller.

As someone, who I must admit occasionally  uses labels but hates being labelled I found this extract interesting about polarisation, most interesting that he is not quite able to find words to describe "progressives or whatever you call them". What seems to be a theme in his writings, is that faith changes lives, that there is a difference between notional belief, a vague intellectual committment, and real belief in Christ, that belief is actually about submitting oneself "unconditionally" to Christ, over and above our "own personal ideology". The label most Germans apply to him is "conservative" more or less the same labels they apply to the Pope.
I think we are in for something good and interesting.

Q: - You first year in the job begins with a bang, the Synod of bishops. But on a personal level what are your hopes for your first year?
A: - Naturally, I have thought of how I would fill this role. I do not believe I was summoned by the Holy Father to fill a bureaucratic post and carry out – so to speak – a bureaucratic task, but as a theologian. So above all, I asked myself; what ails the life of the Church? In many countries, there is a strong polarization: Traditionalists against progressives or whatever you would call them. This must be overcome, we need to find a new and fundamental unity in the Church and individual countries. Unity in Christ, not a unity produced according to a program and later invoked by a partisan speaker. We are not a community of people aligned to a party program, or a community of scientific research, our unity is gifted to us. We believe in the one Church united in Christ. And if you believe in Christ, really believe - not manipulating the teachings of the Church, or singling out individual points to support your own personal ideology, but rather unconditionally entrusting yourself to Christ - then the unity of the Church is also important. Then the Church will not be – as it is sometimes described in Scripture – torn apart by jealousy and ambition. This is my underlying aim: To reduce the tensions within the Church "