Rumored New Doctrinal Czar Has Liberation Theology Ties

By John L. Allen
National Catholic Reporter
February 28, 2012

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/rumored-new-doctrinal-czar-has-liberation-theology-ties#.T0z9DzYpqRw.email

Although speculation about who’s in line for top Vatican jobs is a favorite indoor sport in Catholicism, usually to be taken with a grain of salt, you can sometimes tell a rumor is serious when pot shots start falling on the would-be nominee.

By that standard, Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller of Regensburg, Germany, has to be considered a hot tip for the next prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s powerful doctrine office currently headed by American Cardinal William Levada.

Levada will turn 76 in June, and it’s long been rumored that Muller, 64, is a top candidate to take over. This week, traditionalist Catholics in Italy began circulating e-mails suggesting that Muller, a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a lifelong friend of Pope Benedict XVI, is not a man of “secure doctrine.”

Specifically, the e-mails faulted Muller for espousing suspect positions on the virginity of Mary (which he said in a 2003 book shouldn’t be understood in a “physiological” sense), the Eucharist (Muller has apparently counseled against using the term “body and blood of Christ” to describe the consecrated bread and wine at Mass), and ecumenism (last October, Muller declared that Protestants are “already part of the church” founded by Christ.)

Whatever evaluation one makes of those points, the e-mails suggest that rumors around Muller’s possible appointment have set off alarms in traditionalist circles.

Muller has long been something of a paradox. In Germany, he’s seen as a staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy, often at odds with the liberal reform group “We Are Church”, and he clearly enjoys papal favor.

Aside from the fact that Muller is the bishop of the pope’s home diocese, where Benedict’s brother Georg still resides, he’s also the editor of Benedict’s “Opera Omnia,” a comprehensive collection of all the pope’s writings.

Muller himself is a prolific author, having written more than 400 works on a wide variety of theological topics.

Despite his broadly conservative reputation, Muller actually earned his doctorate in 1977 under then-Fr. Karl Lehmann, who went on to become the cardinal of Mainz and the leader of the moderate wing of the German bishops’ conference. Muller’s dissertation was on the famed German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Moreover, Muller is a close personal friend of the renowned Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, considered the father of liberation theology. Every year since 1998, Muller has travelled to Peru to take a course from Gutierrez, and has spent time living with farmers in a rural parish near the border with Bolivia.

In 2008, he accepted an honorary doctorate from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, which is widely seen as a bastion of the progressive wing of the Peruvian church. On the occasion, he praised Guttierez and defended his theology.

“The theology of Gustavo Gutierrez, independently of how you look at it, is orthodox because it is orthopractic,” he said. “It teaches us the correct way of acting in a Christian fashion since it comes from true faith.”

In the same speech, Muller described "neo-liberal capitalism" as the "infamy of our age."

All that suggests the church might be in for some surprises should Muller indeed inherit the Vatican’s top doctrinal job.