VATICAN CITY
The New York Times
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: July 2, 2012
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a fellow German theologian, Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, to lead the Vatican’s doctrinal office, which is responsible for enforcing orthodoxy, the Vatican said in a statement on Monday.
As the prefect of the office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Bishop Müller, 64, of Regensburg, Germany, will also oversee a continuing investigation of the social justice work of nuns in the United States as well as the handling of clerical sexual abuse cases. He was simultaneously promoted to archbishop.
He replaces Cardinal William J. Levada, 76, the highest-ranking American in the Vatican hierarchy, who is retiring after having served in that post since 2005. On his watch, the Congregation issued a scathing rebuke of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the central coordinating group of American nuns, and contended with a resurgence of accusations of clerical sexual abuse in 2010.
Vatican experts said that Archbishop Müller’s appointment showed that Benedict, 85, is seeking to forge a core of theologically like-minded and loyal advisers as he contends with a scandal over leaked documents that has revealed the dissent and disarray within the Vatican hierarchy. The pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested in May and charged with illegal possession of secret documents.
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