... That decision only emboldened conservative criticism of Francis as an authoritarian. “That is his style, to divide,” Cardinal Müller said on Thursday in his apartment. “All dictators are dividing.”
As Cardinals Prepare to Elect a Pope, One Motto …
The cardinals need to “look for the unification of the church,” said Cardinal Müller, whom Francis ousted from the church’s top doctrinal position in 2017. It is “necessary to speak about the division of the church today,” he said.
Some progressives within the church worry that the dozens of new cardinals Francis chose around the world will be less versed in Vaticanese and may be taken in by the sweetness of the unity siren.
“It sounds really good,” said Cardinal Michael Czerny of Canada, who was one of Francis’ closest advisers, but “it means reversal.” For those who opposed Francis, many of them appointed by his predecessor, Benedict XVI, unity means a “new introversion” with the promise of “unity solving all our problems,” he said.
“If you ask me, ‘How would you name the wrong track for the conclave?’ I would say the idea that unity is the priority,” said Cardinal Czerny, who under Francis led the office for Promoting Integral Human Development. “Unity cannot be a priority issue.”
The two cardinals sit on opposing ends of the ideological divide. Those like Cardinal Czerny put priority on another word: diversity.
“They are the two key words, diversity and unity, and there is a lot in play on the balance between them,” said the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, under secretary for the Vatican’s office for Culture and Education, who was close to Francis.
He, like Francis, believes that the church’s future lies in diversity. Francis chose dozens of new cardinals who were shaped outside of Rome, and he empowered local churches. The trick, Father Spadaro said, was avoiding a “freezing of the church” to keep unity, while heading off a scattering and “splitting” in pursuit of diversity or progress that the church was not ready for.
“Francis kept this very delicate balance and moved the church forward,” he said. The next pope, he said, also “needed to keep the two together.”
And that is why, Cardinal Müller said, “we have to talk now.”
It isn’t a new theme for conservatives. The church would be seriously weakened, the deeply conservative Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea said last year at a symposium in Kenya, “if we do not strive for unity.”
During Francis’ pontificate, Cardinal Sarah emerged as a central critic, and Francis stripped him of his official influence over church liturgy. “If we introduce ruptures and revolutions, we destroy the unity that governs the holy church across the ages,” the cardinal said in 2019.
.....Cardinal Müller, on the other hand, considered the controversy, and Francis’ efforts to get bishops and laypeople to come together to make decisions, to be distractions from the church’s true mission of defending its doctrine and revealing its truth to the world without taking into account popularity contests or politics.
“This agenda with blessings of homosexuals and so on, and women priesthood,” he said, “they are not the great questions for humanity.”
For other cardinals who will vote in the conclave, unity also matters, but it means something different.
For Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik, the South Korean who led the Vatican’s department in charge of clergy, unity “means, for me, open the heart,” he said. He said Francis “taught me I must open my heart to love others.”
And after one of the general assembly meetings this past week, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, who served under Francis as the prefect of the office for the Eastern Churches, said it was too soon to discuss real issues yet. “We have to decide what to put on the table then discuss it,” he said.
For Cardinal Gugerotti, an Italian who is sometimes mentioned as a possible successor to Francis, or as a kingmaker in the conclave, “the lack of unity is always a disaster.”
But, he said, that “does not mean that everybody has to say the same thing.” He added: “There can be a difference. Not opposition, because that is destructive.”
Jason Horowitz is the Rome bureau chief for The Times, covering Italy, the Vatican, Greece and other parts of Southern Europe.