Fr. Brian Harrison Upholds Mary's Perpetual Virginity



Lucy’s confessor later gave her a series of questions about the apparitions at Pontevedra. One of the questions was: "Why five Saturdays and not nine or seven, in honor of the Sorrows of Our Lady?" Upon receiving the questions, she prayed to Our Lord to enlighten her with the answer, which a few days later she gave to her confessor. This is what she wrote:

As I was in the chapel with Our Lord part of the night of May 29-30, 1930, and speaking to Our Lord about questions four and five, I suddenly found myself more intimately possessed by the Divine Presence, and if I am not mistaken, here is what was revealed to me:

‘My daughter, the reason is simple. There are five kinds of offenses and blasphemies uttered against the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception.

Blasphemies against Her perpetual Virginity.

Blasphemies against Her divine Maternity, while refusing at the same time to recognize Her as Mother of men.

The blasphemies of those who publicly seek to place in the hearts of children indifference or scorn, or even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother.

The offenses of those who outrage Her directly in Her holy images.

‘There My daughter, is the reason why the Immaculate Heart of Mary asked Me to request this small act of reparation, and in consideration of it, to move My mercy to forgive souls who have had the misfortune to offend Her. As for you, seek unceasingly, through your prayers and sacrifices, to move My mercy with regard to these poor souls.’

http://www.fatima.org/essentials/facts/pontevedra.asp

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Fr. Brian Harrison has written, relevant to this (e-mail 03/July/12):

Dear Friends of Catholic orthodoxy,

The unthinkable happened at noon today. It appears we now have a Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, who himself publicly dissents from certain Doctrines of the Faith. He does not believe in Our Lady's Virginity in partu, contrary to the teaching of Vatican II (Lumen Gentium: 57 and the Popes, Councils and Doctors cited in support of that doctrine in the acompanying footnote 10). Mueller's reduction of this de fide physical miracle to a generic statement about the influence of "grace . . . on human nature" is the classic demythologizing tactic.

Even more astonishingly, Abp. Mueller also apparently holds a doctrine of Christ's presence in the Eucharist that is Lutheran (at best): the consecrated Species are not the true Body and Blood of Christ in his transfigured (risen) corporality; rather, the Lord just becomes "present" in what remains bread and wine. Mueller's view seem impossible to to distinguish from that condemned as heresy by the Council of Trent (cf. Dz 884 = DS 1652). Pope Paul VI insisted on this dogma in his 1964 Encyclical Mysterium Fidei, and again in what he considered the most important document of his pontificate, the 1968 Solemn Profession of Faith. Here the Holy Father proclaimed: "Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine." (emphasis added) This perennial Catholic doctrine is repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ##1374-1377.

I'll say nothing of Mueller's synpathies for the liberation theology of his close friend Gustavo Gutierrez, or his reported statement that "Protestants are already members of the Church" - a position that would be clearly contrary to Pius XII's teaching in Mystici Corporis as to what constitutes "real membership" of Christ's Church.

Note the passages underlined and in bold in these quotes . They're taken from the Wikipedia entry on Mueller (where they probably would not last longer than 15 minutes if they were simply fabricated or even falsified "quotes", or if they were genuine, but subsequently retracted and recanted).

May Heaven preserve the Church against the gates of Hell in this dark hour.

BH

Eucharist: In 2002, bishop Müller published the book "Die Messe - Quelle des christlichen Lebens" (St. Ulrich Verlag, Augsburg). In the book, he says : "In reality, the body and blood of Christ do not mean the material components of the human person of Jesus during his lifetime or in his transfigured corporality. Here, body and blood mean the presence of Christ in the signs of the medium of bread and wine."

Liberation theology

Müller was also a pupil of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the “father” of Latin-American liberation theology, with whom he has a long and close friendship. Commenting on Guitierrez, Müller stated: "The theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, independently of how you look at it, is orthodox because it is orthopractic and it teaches us the correct way of acting in a Christian fashion since it comes from true faith." It is important to note that Gutiérrez’s thoughts were never censured by the Holy See although it was asked that he modify a few of his writings.[5]

Mariology

In his 900-page work "Katholische Dogmatik. Für Studium und Praxis der Theologie" (Freiburg. 5th Edition, 2003), Müller says that the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is "not so much concerned with specific physiological proprieties in the natural process of birth [...], but with the healing and saving influence of the grace of the Savior on human nature."

 

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