Source: https://cathnews.co.nz/2019/10/31/cardinal-muller-married-priests/ (5 June 2020)
Excerpt:
Writing in 1992, when he was professor of dogmatics at Munich University and had not yet become a bishop, Müller looked back to a trip he made to the Andes in Peru in 1988. “On the Feast of the Assumption (in 1988), we experienced expressions of a deeply felt Indian religiosity which in our eyes could be understood as an expression of genuine faith and trust in God,” he wrote.
In his “Reflections on a Seminar”, held in 1988 on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the 1968 Medellin General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops, (CELAM) which were published in the Catholic Academy for Youth Issues – Akademie für Jugendfragen – Müller then advocated ordaining viri probati, that is, proven married men.
“Celibate priests are necessary for the priesthood. It must, however, be possible to ordain religiously proven and theologically educated family fathers, not only in remote areas but also in huge city parishes, so that basic pastoral and liturgical practices can continue to be celebrated,” Müller emphasised.
He explained: “A new concept of this kind would not contradict the Church’s tradition, as loyalty to tradition does not mean that the Church is only committed to past history but, on the contrary, far more to future history.”
He then warned: “If the Church insists on holding on to obligatory celibacy under all circumstances, it must state the reasons as to why both the spiritual meaning and the assets of celibacy are of such importance to the Church that it is even prepared to hazard a decisive deformation of its constitution on account of the lack of priests.”
These views on celibacy stand in strong contrast to views he expressed during the Amazon Synod.
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