Ratzinger's knife? (2)

I think Professor Ratzinger's phrase "the approval of the official organs that must be asked according to established norms" is very interesting.

Readers will remember ... Cardinal Mueller certainly does remember ... the occasion when some of his own colleagues were sacked, directly and unheard, by PF. A narrative which has not, I think, been denied, holds that they had been heard complaining about the personal intervention of PF to quash the convictions of some clergy convicted of sexual abuse. Mueller took the view that his staff had been unjustly dealt with and that, in any case, it was odd that he had not himself been consulted.

Another such undenied narrative is that while actually celebrating the Holy Mysteries, His Eminence had been summoned to the phone to be told, by an angry PF, to drop the canonical investigation (recently initiated according to the established norms) against Cormac Murphy O'Connor, a member of the 'S Gallen Group'.

And Cardinal Mueller was subsequently not confirmed in his position as Prefect of the CDF.

I need say no more. But, if anybody is interested, there is a series of blogposts which I replay from time to time, arguing that the Curia Romana is not an irrelevant bureaucracy, but has a theological significance and status. This series last appeared in July last year.