Gerhard Cardinal MÜLLER. The Pope: His Mission and His Task. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 2021. pp. 387. $29.95 pb. ISBN 9780813234694. Reviewed by Kathleen BORRES, Saint Vincent Seminary, Latrobe, PA 15650.

Cardinal Müller fills each page of The Pope: His Mission and Task with such rich historical, theological, spiritual and pastoral insights that readers cannot read and study this book just once. Rather, they will need time to absorb the many arguments and details in this dense ten-part (eighty chapters) work of a great theologian, translated by Augustinian Canon Regular and parish priest, Fr. Brian McNeil. It would be time well spent, though, for anyone willing to engage challenging questions about:

a) the “personal” foundation of the Office of Peter by Christ, an office in which Peter continues to serve through his successors;
b) the evidence from Divine Revelation (Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition) for the office of Peter as Head of the College of the Apostles;
c) the pastoral and spiritual mission of the Office of Peter instituted by Christ for the good of the whole Church and God’s universal salvific will;
d) the Pope as teacher of God’s truth and guarantor of human freedom and as the Church’s own pastor on its path to God;
e) the theological import of the Office itself, as Divine Gift;
f) how the teaching about the Office of Peter developed in a sound way in the Tradition, that is, “in Conformity with Its Divine Institution” (pt. 2, chap. 5);
g) the significance of the church of Rome, both in the apostolic tradition and with respect to the Office of Peter;
h) certain epistemological principles of Catholic Theology (e.g., historicity of the revelation, tradition, communion, and other related principles) that pertain to both the rule of faith and the Office of Peter, an office that “attests to” and “confirms” the Church’s faith; and
i) the importance of stripping away “the superimpositions of religious politics” and returning “to the essential elements of the Roman primacy – that is, the Catholic truth and the unity of all bishops and faithful in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” (pt. 4, chap. 11 [“Rapprochements Between East and West in the Question of the Primacy”], p. 195).

The above list does not exhaust the issues addressed in the book. Cardinal Müller offers us so many nuanced points it would be difficult to summarize them in a short book review. Suffice it to say the book offers readers an excellent resource for continual study and dialogue. It is both broad in scope and detailed in its approach to what has been and continues to be an obstacle for many. Despite the obstacles, even opposition, Cardinal Müller shows pastoral concern in his work. His concern is for the good of all, which is why it is not just another book about the papacy but is a book about people. In fact, as Müller writes in his preface, he gives precedence to the “person before the institution” (xv). In this case, he is referring to the title papacy, which he prefers not to use when talking about the person Christ appointed as chief shepherd of his flock, “the first line of a long line of his successors” and whose ministry “continues to exist, even when the persons who carry it out succeed one another in the course of time” (xv).

However, his emphasis on the person, more broadly speaking, also comes through in the book. The Cardinal is concerned about people, not the institution in and of itself. The purpose of the institution was pastoral from the very beginning and this pastoral thread runs through the book, beginning with the Cardinal’s opening chapters on “The Popes in the Story of My Life.” In this first part of the book, we see a young boy growing into adulthood remembering the chief shepherds at key moments in his life and recalling how they made their mark on him.  In subsequent parts, we see the same pastoral concern. For example, in Part 2, The Papacy as a Fact of History and of Revelation, he reminds his readers that the pope is Vicar of Christ, “the servant of servants of Christ” (chap. 4, p. 81), which is a very personal representation. He likens the Church to the body and soul of the human being (chap. 8, p. 95), another very personal representation. Likewise, he writes, “the Catholic’s relationship to the Roman pope is not generated first and foremost by a complex theory about his primacy of teaching and jurisdiction, but by the insight, supported by supernatural faith, that in the pope, the bishop of Rome [a person], there are present the authority and the power that Christ bestowed on Simon Peter and on his successors” (chap. 8, p. 97). For what purpose? To be fishers of men down through the ages. In Part 3, He Who Founded the Church Also Founded the Papacy, Cardinal Müller recalls significant moments in the life of the Galilean fisherman, “Simon Peter.” He reminds his readers of Peter’s calling, crisis, preaching at Pentecost and establishment of “the Church as a visible gathering by means of his sermon [after which] . . . [h]e also gave its sacramental reality a concrete form in baptism” (chap. 11, p. 135), etc.

The same thread surfaces in other parts of the book. “Simon, the fisher from Lake Gennesaret, brought the primacy with him to Rome and integrated it into the fundament of the Roman Church” (pt. 4 [The Catholic Church in the Apostolic Tradition], chap. 2, p. 150). About the oral tradition “present in the sacred scriptures of the old and new covenant, in the life of the Church in preaching, confession, liturgy, and the sacramental means of grace . . . . [a]ll of this is handed on not in the manner of a ‘thing’ . . . but from person to person” (pt. 4, chap. 3, p. 159). Further, after quoting from Johann Adam Mohler’s work, Die Einheit in der Kirche, the Cardinal writes, “in other words, the pope of Rome is the unity of the universal Church in person” (pt. 4, chap. 6, p. 174).

In Part 5, The Dogma of the Doctrinal and Jurisdictional Primacy of the Roman Pope, Müller continues to show appreciation for Peter and his successors when he quotes from Pastor Aeternus on the primacy of Peter and when he closes this part of the book with: “at every period, Peter confesses through the pope” (chap. 5, p. 218).

Subsequent parts of the book also witness to Cardinal Müller’s appreciation for the person of Peter (and for all people). For example, in Part 6, The Integration of the Papacy into the Church and the College of Bishops, he writes about Vatican 1 and Vatican 2, the work of Johann Adam Mohler (whom Müller esteems as an orthodox, reputable theologian of the nineteenth century), various papal documents, the Synod of Bishops, episcopal conferences, and the reform of the Curia. Through it all, he makes clear Peter’s unique role and ministry.

The same is true for Part 7, The Pope – Christ’s Witness to the Dignity of Every Human Being, Part 8, The Pope – Teacher of God’s Truth and Guarantor of Human Freedom, Part 9, the Pope – The Church’s Pastor on its Path to God, and in Part 10, The Mission of the Pope in God’s Universal Salvific Will. Concluding Part 7, Cardinal Müller writes about the “universal mission of the pope and bishop of Rome, to cry out ‘with the boldness of Peter’ . . . to everyone’s memory and conscience that Jesus of Nazareth is the salvation of the world” (chap. 6, p. 292). In Part 8, in a section where he writes of certain “isms” that distort the truth of the created order and person, e.g., relativism, materialism, secularism, pantheistic and naturalistic nihilism, rationalism, empiricism, national socialism, communism, etc., and where he recalls the efforts of Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II, he writes the following:

“In his confession of Christ, the pope renders a service to the whole of humanity, by reminding all that God is the foundation of the truth and of human freedom” (chap. 1, p. 295).

In Part 9, he writes of Pope Francis’s efforts to pastor the Church, which is “on its path to God.” Concluding that section, he writes of the great concern of Pope Francis that “faith will once again be experienced as a gift, if we grasp that God is love.” He writes that Pope Francis “never wearies of proclaiming the message of the love and goodness of Jesus Christ and the justice and mercy of God to a world that has little hope and is torn apart by fanaticism.” Pope Francis, thereby “fulfills the charge that was given to him in Saint Peter by Jesus at the Last Supper: ‘Strengthen your brethren!’” (chap. 3, p. 344).

Finally, in Part 10, writing about God’s universal salvific will, the Cardinal again draws attention to the mission of Peter’s successor, “bearing witness before all human beings to Jesus as the divine bringer of salvation and presenting them with the Church’s confession of faith in the authority of Christ. The teaching of the Church that the pope champions is . . . first of all testimony to a person in whom the entire truth of God for the world is revealed and who gives everyone support and hope” (chap. 1, pp. 345-46). The successor of Saint Peter is in fact “the voice of a new caller in the wilderness” (chap. 2). He is “a fisher of men for Christ” (chap. 3) and “a preacher of divine mercy” (chap. 4). He holds the “keys to the kingdom of heaven” (chap. 5), holds up “a mirror to the conscience of the world” (chap. 8), is a collaborator “for the common good” (chap. 10), and is shepherd of the universal Church.