Müller: It is not true I avoided greeting the Pope because of an argument, by Andrea Tornielli, Vatican Insider (October 22, 2014)

Müller: It is not true I avoided greeting the Pope because of an argument

By Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
October 22, 2014

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/sinodo-famiglia-37075/

The cardinal has denied last Sunday’s alleged “incident”. At the post-Synod round table the President of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, Mgr. Melina, argued that the open approaches proposed during the Synod were simply “ways to attract people. It is like introducing end of season sales, Church style”

“It is not true that I deliberately avoided going to greet Pope Francis at the end of last Sunday’s mass because of an argument ... these allegations are false,” Cardinal Ludwig Müller said at the end of a round table on the theme “The hope of the family. The Synod and beyond” held at the European University of Rome. He denied that he avoided greeting the Pope after the celebration of October 19^th because of an argument a number of individuals claimed he had had with him.

“The Pope only greeted a few people who were sitting in the front row. I was sitting further back and in any case, I had spoken to him face to face the day before, during a Synod break,” the cardinal told Vatican Insider before leaving the conference. Curia cardinals such as myself live in Rome and have fixed audiences with the Pope so on occasions like these (19 October, Ed.) we give precedence to cardinals and bishops who come from further afield and have fewer chances than us to speak with the Pope. In any case, I think there were many who didn’t greet Francis last Sunday: had we all greeted him, Francis would have been stuck there for half an hour...”