confirmed by Cardinal Müller is quite astounding.
Can we dare hope that Pope Francis will realize the manipulation and soften his heart and be a shepherd and father to all the flock, including those smelly sheep on the peripheries?
Francis manipulated into promulgating Traditionis custodes, says Cardinal Müller
Members of the St. Anselm Athenaeum and others convinced the Holy Father that the Traditional Mass is "divisive" and encouraged him to restrict it until its virtual demise, Cardinal Gerhard Müller argues in his recently published book "In Good Faith."
The decision to promulgate Traditionis custodes, the motu proprio with which Francis abrogates the liberation of his predecessor's Traditional Mass reached in Summorum Pontificum, was "unexpected and for traditionalists it has been like receiving a slap in the face," says Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith, in his recent book "In Good Faith." "The prohibition to attend this form of liturgy has created chasms, has caused suffering. It would have been more useful to distinguish between the substance of the sacraments which derive from Christ through the Apostles, and are essential, and the liturgical form which exists in various rites in the Church", where there are up to 23.
Müller blames this decision on the pressure of "some professors of the San Anselmo Athenaeum, who approached the Pope and conditioned him for their own interest. Of them I know some according to whom the only legitimate liturgical form is the conciliar, all other forms should disappear, although the Council has broadened the horizons in a harmonious unity on the essential".
What Benedict wanted with Summorum Pontificum was "to facilitate the unity and progressive inclusion of traditionalists. Years later, under the current pontificate, a group of advisers of Francis went to lament maintaining that Benedict XVI with that measure had taken a false step, causing further divisions and that, to rebalance the situation, it was better to return everything to how it was before. In short, they manipulated Francis," says the Cardinal.
