Cardinal Müller criticises German bishops for caving in to pro-abortion ideology. Magnificent statement.

Cardinal Müller criticizes German bishops for caving in to pro-abortion ideology

In a lengthy article published from Rome, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has harshly criticized the German bishops who, he claims, have yielded to ideological and political interests to the detriment of their evangelical duty to defend human life from conception to natural death. The Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denounces that some prelates have avoided speaking clearly on the right to life, placing their concern for not being "politically exploited" before their responsibility as successors of the apostles. Müller emphasizes that this attitude constitutes a betrayal of the Church's mission and a doctrinal confusion fueled by ideological currents alien to Christianity. The cardinal warns that German Catholicism, influenced by the "woke" mentality and the thought of authors such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, has replaced Christian inspiration with a hermeneutic of "humanism without God." This tendency, Müller asserts, prevents the Church from fulfilling its prophetic mission and turns it into an organization at the service of the State.

The text also forcefully addresses abortion, describing it as a "murder of innocents" that cannot be justified from a Christian anthropological perspective. Müller maintains that no right to self-determination can prevail over the right to life, and reminds us that parents are not the owners of their children, but rather their responsible guardians.

Finally, the cardinal calls on the bishops to regain fidelity to the Gospel and the Second Vatican Council, recalling that their vocation is not that of accommodating officials, but rather that of pastors willing to undergo martyrdom for the truth.

Below, we publish the full text of Cardinal Gerhard Müller's remarks, as released from Rome:

German Bishops Between Truth and Politics

By Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Rome

In Germany, there is currently a debate over whether a person who questions Article 1 of the Constitution—the fundamental right of every human being to their own life, from conception to natural death—can be fit to serve as a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court.

Even Catholic bishops have avoided giving a clear "yes" to life, placing the struggle of political parties for state power before their apostolic witness to the "truth of the Gospel" (Gal 2:14), which is the sole reason for their existence. Jesus, from whom all authority of the apostles and the bishops as their successors derives, formulated, in response to the Pharisees' trick question, the guideline on how his Church should behave toward legitimate political power: "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mt 22:21). But this is not a cheap compromise that allows Christianity to coexist with the idolatry of totalitarian state power (such as the Roman imperial cult) or with atheistic ideologies (such as the "priests of peace" in communist states or the "German Christians" under Nazism). Jesus himself, before Pilate—a symbol of usurped power that arrogates to itself the power to decide life and death—showed that truth does not depend on the will of the powerful or on relativistic skepticism. Pilate boasts of his “power” (Jn 19:10) to free or crucify Jesus, and mocks the unity between God and his Son, who is Truth incarnate and the salvation of all mankind. Jesus reveals himself as a “King” whose sovereignty does not consist in exploiting his people, but in giving his life for his sheep (Jn 10:11), just as bishops and priests should do.

In the face of cynical contempt for the truth in the name of power, Jesus bears witness to the truth of God: “Yes, I am a king. I was born and came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (Jn 18:37). Knowing that they would be brought before tribunals, imprisoned, and handed over to “kings and rulers” (Lk 21:12), Peter and the apostles—a model for popes and bishops—proclaimed: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). They denied all human authority (state, justice, army, nation, tradition, philosophy, or science) the right to prevent them from “teaching in the name of Jesus” (Acts 5:28): “For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The entire history of the Church teaches that her mission to serve God as “the universal sacrament of salvation of the world in Christ” (Lumen Gentium 1:48; Gaudium et Spes 45) is obscured or even betrayed when bishops bow to the interests of power. The contrast between a good shepherd and a salaried employee is evident when a bishop sees himself not as a civil servant until retirement, but as a servant of Christ until martyrdom.

The current German misunderstanding of the Church as an institution useful to the State expresses itself thus: "We must not loudly proclaim the truths of the natural moral law or of God's revelation, so as not to offend the neo-Gnostic ideologues of self-redemption or be exploited by non-Marxist political parties." But this fear of being used politically leads to seeking the approval of the opposing party, the same party that is anti-Christian because it subjects the truth of the Gospel to the calculations of power.

Nor is it the Church's role to protect the constitution of a State; that is the task of its institutions. The Church must, in season and out of season, proclaim the Gospel and defend human dignity wherever it is threatened. A state of law only deserves its name if it respects human rights, not merely if it proclaims them rhetorically. The Catholic bishop, in the name of God, must oppose, even to the point of martyrdom, all atheistic and misanthropic ideologies that trample on the right to life and deny human dignity as the image of God.

The post-humanist or trans-humanist wolf disguises itself in sheep's clothing, speaking of autonomy and self-determination—but only for the strong against the weak. To say that human dignity begins only at birth is a folly that can only come from the empty head of an ideologue or the frozen heart of a ruthless jurist, more loyal to the letter than the spirit, who begins and ends in legal paragraphs, without considering the flesh-and-blood human being.

The child who is born is the same person who was conceived, gestated for nine months, and created in the image of God, already called by Him to eternal salvation. To avoid being instrumentalized in partisan struggles—where there is no hesitation in labeling the adversary as “far right” or “far left”—the bishops must not sacrifice the truth of Christ for fear of being labeled “conservative” or “right-wing” by the woke press. This is the "mortal disease" of German Catholicism aligned with woke ideology: inspired more by Judith Butler than Edith Stein, more by Marx than Möhler or Newman, more by Foucault than Henri de Lubac.

The error began when the truth of the Gospel was subordinated to a hermeneutic of "humanism without God," which abuses modern science to relativize the revealed truth about humanity. Bishops cannot collaborate with those who deny the divine image in human beings. Every variant of Social Darwinism is radically anti-Christian. Maintaining that "he who survives is right and defines what is just" has led to the justification of the extermination of disabled, unwanted, or ideological enemies (the communist "class enemy," the Nazi "racial parasite").

Anyone who recognizes the human right to life and bases it on divine revelation can never justify the death of an innocent person. Contrasting a mother's right to decide about her body with a child's right to life is a diabolical deception that obscures the truth: one person's right to life ends where another's right to life begins. The true right of parents is to protect and nurture their children, not to decide their life or death.

A state that usurps parental rights is not democratic, but a totalitarian monster that devours its own offspring. The bishops can free themselves from this dilemma between the Gospel and politics if they return to the foundation of the Second Vatican Council and restore doctrinal clarity.

And this is the Magna Carta of the cultural struggle between life and death that the barbarity of the atheistic ideologies of the 20th century and the present has left us:

> “Everything that goes against life itself: murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and even voluntary suicide; everything that violates the integrity of the person: mutilation, physical or psychological torture, psychological coercion; everything that offends human dignity: inhuman living conditions, arbitrary detentions, deportations, slavery, prostitution, trafficking in women and children, undignified working conditions… All these and similar things are a disgrace. They degrade the perpetrator more than the sufferer. And they are a scandal to the honor of the Creator.” (*Gaudium et spes*, 27).

Conclusion:

The child's right to life is infinitely above the parents' right to self-determination. We must begin with the child, not with those who consider them a hindrance. Freedom ends where another's right to life begins. Children are not the property of their parents; they are entrusted to their education.

The Catholic Church defends throughout the world the absolute right to life of the unborn, the born, healthy, sick, young, and elderly. It cannot subordinate this struggle to the dominant ideology or allow itself to be intimidated by opinion manipulators. It must act with prophetic courage and critical thinking, forming consciences and raising the moral standard of society.

Unborn children cannot denounce the crimes committed against them or demand justice. But bishops can and should speak out for them—even if they are defamed by ideologues and politicians—thus fulfilling one of their most noble tasks:

“Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all the afflicted” (Prov 31:8).

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