VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews, Cardinal Gerhard Müller critiqued the Synod on Synodality for its “concession to feminist ideas,” and stated that Fiducia Supplicans is “a propaganda trick” to win support from the LGBT movement.
“Behind Fiducia Supplicans there is nothing to do with the pastoral [care] for these persons of so-called same-sex attraction, but it is only a propaganda trick to show ‘we are not against this worldwide movement of LGBT and we must make a certain concession that we will not be so attacked by them as a counterpart,’” stated Cardinal Müller.
The cardinal’s comments came as part of his extensive interview with LifeSiteNews {Part I can be found here} conducted recently in Rome, covering the Synodal Way, the Synod on Synodality, homosexual blessings and abortion. (Editor’s note: The interview is published in three separate articles, with the full transcript of each successive relevant part of the discussion presented at the end of each article).
Intended by its promoters to show that “we are belonging to you,” namely to the LGBT movement, Müller attested that Fiducia Supplicans “was a heavy strike against matrimony, as founded in the Logos of God in His reason, in the shaping of the world, of creation.”
“They cannot say all is clear,” said Müller, rebuffing the defense made by proponents of Fiducia Supplicans. “All pastoral actions or reflections must be based on true anthropology and matrimony as a sacrament. The sense of human sexuality is not to have a pleasure for yourself – the pleasure connected with sexuality is a gift of God – but for the promotion of the attraction between men and women. This is a bodily-based expression of the personal love which is open for other persons.”
He urged people “to have a Christian understanding of the creation of human being, Christian anthropology, Christian Christology, Ecclesiology, understanding of the sacraments of grace, [and] what is eternal life,” rather than to accept the movement of homosexual ideology.
Practical response to bishops pushing homosexual blessings
The German cardinal has already made a number of critiques of the Vatican’s Fiducia Supplicans document on same-sex blessings, including previously stating that it “leads to heresy.”
Speaking on the topic in September 2023 prior to the publication of Fiducia Supplicans, Müller stated that “Blessing immoral behavior by persons of the same or opposite sex is a direct contradiction of God’s word and will, a gravely sinful blasphemy.”
At the time, he added that “in such an extreme situation…every ecclesiastical official would have lost his authority and no Catholic is any longer obliged to religiously obey a heretical or schismatic bishop.”
Questioned by LifeSite about the practical implications of this statement, Müller urged Catholics to protest to their bishops.
They should contradict [the bishops], and if they are able to, [they should] explain or to say to their pastors or to their bishops that they are not the serfs of the bishop, and the bishop has only authority over the faithful given from Jesus Christ.
Repeating an earlier phrase, Müller noted that “the bishops and the Pope are not the saviors of the world, and they only serve the ministers.”
“Unfortunately we have a lot of bishops with a wrong understanding,” he said. “They have no theology of the Catholic theology. They don’t know that our faith is based in the relation [with], and has this ultimate and highest criterion in the Holy Scripture, and in the official and apostolic Tradition of the Church, and that the magisterium and authority of the bishops is not above or beyond the Word of God.”
Such bishops, attested Müller, have reduced their theology to the view that the Pope has ultimate authority over faith, and can implement “personal” ideas as teaching. Individuals with “no theological ideas, no knowledge of the Bible and Apostolic Tradition, the Church Fathers, the great tradition of the Catholic theology” end up reducing the Pope to having “absolute power in the world or in the Vatican like an autocrat.”
READ: EXCLUSIVE: Cardinal Müller slams synodal ‘ideology’ trying to turn the Church into an ‘NGO’
“The consequence would be that the faithful are believing in the bishop or in the pope, but not in Jesus Christ. This is an absolute perversion of the Catholic faith,” he said.
Müller mused that such a position, now being held by Catholic bishops, repeats the “wrong interpretation of the papacy and the episcopacy” which was exposed by Martin Luther and his followers.
On the contrary, Müller noted that the Pope and the bishops are called to be “the first who have to be obedient to Jesus,” and that “Catholics have not to be obedient to the bishops [in their person], but they have to be obedient in the Faith to Jesus Christ. The bishops are only the messengers, the preachers of the gospel of the truth, but not of their own truth, but of the truth of Jesus Christ.”
The full transcript of Part II of LifeSite’s interview with Cardinal Müller is found below
Michael Haynes: I wanted to pick up on the “agenda” that you mentioned. It is interesting now to see in the Synod of Synodality, some of the most controversial issues from the Synodal Way are also emerging. It was March 2023 when the Synodal Way voted to move forward with some form of female diaconate, and then also some form of same-sex blessings. Of course we are now seeing with the Synod of Synodality some certain voices very prominently calling for the female diaconate. We now have Fiducia Supplicans dealing with some blessing of same-sex couples. You mentioned the “agenda,” do you think there is an agenda coming from certain forces in Germany or from certain forces perhaps in Rome, or is it less defined than that?
Cardinal Gerhard Müller: This is a proof of our analysis because they are not interested in the substance of the mission of the Church. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God, the closeness of the grace, conversion and eternal life, witness for the Gospel and so it brings hope to everybody.
But they have these themes – diaconate for the women – not because it is necessary or has anything to do with the Sacrament of Orders, but only with this motive behind: to give a concession to feminist ideas, the promotion of women and the emancipation, and they are playing with the Church doctrine only for promoting their own non-theological ideas.
Behind Fiducia Supplicans there is nothing to do with the pastoral [care] for these persons of so-called same-sex attraction, but it is only a propaganda trick to show “we are not against this worldwide movement of LGBT and we must make a certain concession that we will not be so attacked by them as a counterpart.” They wanted to demonstrate, “we are belonging to you,” but in reality this was a heavy strike against matrimony, as founded in the Logos of God in His reason, in the shaping of the world, of creation.
They cannot say all is clear. All pastoral actions or reflections must be based on true anthropology and matrimony as a sacrament. The sense of human sexuality is not to have a pleasure for yourself – the pleasure connected with sexuality is a gift of God – but for the promotion of the attraction between men and women. This is a bodily-based expression of the personal love which is open for other persons.
The children: children are not only there for subjective pleasure of their parents…the relation of parents and children is absolutely ontologically [on] another level to any animals or other things, or to go into the love of the use against, but it is a personal relation, and this personal relation is rooted in the inner Trinitarian relation which is God himself. That must come before our eyes. We must understand what it is to have a Christian understanding of the creation of human being, Christian anthropology, Christian Christology, Ecclesiology, understanding of the sacraments of grace, [and] what is eternal life.
Haynes: On that issue of same sex blessings, since the document Fiducia Supplicans emerged in December, we have seen numerous bishops, particularly in Africa, who have voiced strong concerns about it, you and some other cardinals have also voiced concerns about it. I wanted to go back to something that you mentioned in September, and just highlight that, now that we have Fiducia Supplicans. There was a comment you made in September when the prospect of same- sex blessings was being raised as a possibility at the Synod on Synodality. You mentioned that “blessing immoral behavior by persons of the same or opposite sex is a direct contradiction of God’s word and will, a gravely sinful blasphemy,” and you added that if this happened then “every ecclesiastical official [who went along with this] would have lost his authority, and no Catholic would be obliged to religiously obey a heretical or schismatic bishop.” Given the many bishops who have welcomed and promoted blessings for same-sex couples now, would you be able to explain what that practically means for Catholics in those dioceses?
Cdl. Müller: They should contradict [the bishops], and if they are able to, [they should] explain or to say to their pastors or to their bishops that they are not the serfs of the bishop, and the bishop has only authority over the faithful given from Jesus Christ. This is not his own authority, this is not an absolute authority, he cannot say “I have authority and therefore I can deduce all my personal ideas and oblige you to accept my personal thinking.”
The bishops and the Pope are not the saviors of the world, and they only serve the ministers. And therefore unfortunately we have a lot of bishops with a wrong understanding. They have no theology of the Catholic theology. They don’t know that our faith is based in the relation [with], and has this ultimate and highest criterion in the Holy Scripture, and in the official and apostolic Tradition of the Church, and that the majesterium and authority of the bishops is not above or beyond the Word of God.
Their theology is reduced [to the view that] “only this pope has the highest power, we have another power, and with the authority of our formal power, we can impose our personal ideas for the faithful.” The consequence would be that the faithful are believing in the bishop or in the pope, but not in Jesus Christ. This is an absolute perversion of the Catholic faith.
It’s a little bit like in the olden times when some bishops in the Byzantine time…they were more obedient to Caesar than to Jesus Christ. The Aryans, who were promoted by Christian, Aryan emperors. This is the wrong way, the other way around is the right way.
Pope Benedict, [as]Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, but [also] all the classical Catholic theology says that the Pope and the bishops are the first who have to be obedient to Jesus. Catholics have not to be obedient to the bishops [in their person], but they have to be obedient in the Faith to Jesus Christ. The bishops are only the messengers, the preachers of the gospel of the truth, but not of their own truth, but of the truth of Jesus Christ.
We have some people who have no theological ideas, no knowledge of the Bible and Apostolic Tradition, the Church Fathers, the great tradition of the Catholic theology: they reduce the Pope to “having absolute power in the world [or] in the Vatican like an Autocrat, and in the Church, we have only the duty of a blind obedience.” That was the caricature of Luther and Calvin, the caricature of our Catholic Faith, which was the wrong interpretation in the 16th century.
But now it is very strange that Catholic bishops accept the wrong interpretation of the papacy and the episcopacy of the Lutherans who rejected the Catholic faith, but they [the Lutherans] didn’t reject the Catholic faith, they rejected the wrong understanding of the Catholic faith.
It’s ridiculous that bishops of nowadays are accepting the wrong interpretation of the Catholic hierarchy inside of the so-called reformers.