Vatican: Pope Francis has chosen Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer as the new prefect for the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
The Jesuit bishop succeeds Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s who completed his term .“The Holy Father Francis thanked His Eminence Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller at the conclusion of his quinquennial mandate,” the Vatican announcement said. No new position was announced for Cardinal Muller, who at 69 is still more than five years away from the normal retirement age for a bishop.
Pope Francis had met Cardinal Müller, whose five-year ended July 2, that morning.
While Pope Francis wrote in his exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, that Church teaching on marriage had not changed, both Rorate Caeli and Corrispondenza Romana implied that Cardinal Müller was let go because he insisted that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics could not receive Communion unless they made a commitment to abstain from sexual relations with their new partners. Other bishops and bishops’ conferences have read Pope Francis’s document as presenting a process of discernment that in certain circumstances could allow some couples to return to the sacraments.
Cardinal Müller was the first Vatican official formally confirmed in his post by Pope Francis after his election in 2013 and was among the 19 churchmen named cardinals that year by Pope Francis.
The prefect of the doctrinal congregation is responsible for promoting the correct interpretation of Catholic doctrine and theology. His office also is responsible for conducting investigations of clergy accused of sexually abusing minors.
Resigning from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Marie Collins, one of the founding members and the last remaining abuse survivor on the commission, said members of the Roman Curia were reluctant to implement the commission’s recommendations and she particularly cited Cardinal Müller.
Speaking to reporters in May on his flight from Fatima, Portugal, to Rome, Pope Francis said Collins was “a little bit right” because of the slow pace of investigating so many cases of alleged abuse.
However, the Pope said the delays were due to the need to draft new legislation and to the fact that few people have been trained to investigate allegations of abuse. Cardinal Müller and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, he added, were looking “for new people”.
As head of the doctrinal congregation, the prefect also serves as president the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the International Theological Commission and the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which is responsible for the pastoral care of traditionalist Catholics and for the ongoing reconciliation talks with the Society of St Pius X.
The new prefect, Archbishop Ladaria, was appointed congregation secretary in 2008 by Benedict XVI after having worked with him as a member of the International Theological Commission in 1992-1997, as a consultant to the doctrinal congregation from 1995 to 2008 and as secretary general of the theological commission from 2004 until being named congregation secretary.
Archbishop Ladaria was born in Manacor, Mallorca, on April 19, 1944, and earned a law degree at the University of Madrid before entering the Society of Jesus in 1966. After theology and philosophy studies in Spain and Germany, he was ordained to the priesthood July 29, 1973.He earned a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1975 and began teaching dogmatic theology at the Pontifical University Comillas in Madrid. Nine years later, he began teaching at the Gregorian and served as vice rector of the university from 1986 to 1994.
(source: Catholic Herald)