Replacement for Cardinal Kasper

as head of the Pontifical Council for promoting Christian Unity is rumoured to be Bishop Ludwig Mueller of Regensburg. Probable and allegedly are the words being used following a story in the magazine Focus which depends on an anonymous Vatican source. An alternative is appointment as the Rector of the Lateran University. The Pope clearly has other ideas about who should become Archbishop of Cologne in due time.

He is already a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was a member of the International Theological Commission from 1998 to 2005.

Indicators are that he took over from Cardinal Kasper the lead role in the international Catholic-Lutheran dialogue and he has just been appointed to the Pontifical Council for Culture.

In his own pasture of Regensburg, the Protestants respect his theological competence but do not like him, especially since he snubbed their Regional Synod in November last year, a supposedly "ecumenical must"!

He is not to be confused with a Protestant pastor of the same name who was put in charge of the Reich Church by Hitler, who was nothing if not a convinced ecumenist!One church for Germany was the cry at the time.

Rather the contemporary Bishop Mueller is known as one of the most conservative of German bishops, punching not only to the left, but also to the right, as witnessed by his combative stand towards the SSPX.

Whatever the case, a Cardinal's hat is waiting for him in the not too distant future.

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