The fact that Pope Leo XIV was selected in just 25 hours was a sign of the "great unanimity" in the College of the Cardinals and a good sign for the Catholic Church overall, Cardinal Gerhard Muller told Newsmax on Sunday.
"Only 25 hours were needed for the election of the new Pope, and that is a sign that is the College of the Cardinals is in a great harmony, a great unanimity," Muller said in an interview with Newsmax's Rome correspondent Alex Salvi.
"And this is a good sign for the church of today, because the mass media interested people, they spoke about the splitting of the church, two parties, one against another, and that is not true."
The church, Muller added, is "united in Jesus Christ and the truth revealed."
"We have to avoid all the ideologies, ideologies, the left and right or conservative or liberal or whatever it be, [that] are separating, divisive," he said. "We are united in Jesus Christ. We have to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the salvation of everybody, of the dignity of everybody, of all men, human beings, and that the salvation is possible after our death is not all thing is over, but we have the hope that we in this life, we can go our way with Jesus Christ and a good, good way and a good manner."
Then, he said, "We hope that we are saved forever for all times and all eternity. That is a communion of the faithful of the saints and the full communion with the Triune God," meaning God is one in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
He pointed out that the new Pope is a successor of Saint Peter, not of the precedent Pope Francis, and even while there is continuity, all Popes have "the right and the duty to fulfill his own mission and his own understanding."
"Nobody can be a copy of another person," Muller continued. "Therefore, Jesus instituted the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. But every Pope has his own pontificate, and now we have to give the chance for Pope Leo XIV to do his duty according to his spirituality, his theology."
The new Pope, meanwhile, while speaking with the College of Cardinals, said he chose his name based on the first Pope Leo, who tackled the dangers posed by the Industrial Revolution.
Muller said the church is not afraid of technological development or artificial intelligence and wants the remastering of moral principles to dominate the modern world.
"All this apparatus and the possibilities, they have to serve the human being," he said. "We cannot be slaves of all these technological possibilities. We have their possibilities, and nobody wants to miss today their iPhone or iPad."
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