From the 2018 Catholic Conclave Archive- Jesuit Mertes accuses Cardinal Müller of "clerical conceit" and then links such conceit to enabling child abuse

Jesuit Klaus Mertes has criticized Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller with unusually harsh criticism, accusing him of "clerical conceit." Many employees have worked hard for years and are willing to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the Church, Mertes said on Friday in Bonn.

Allergic to Jesuit clothing

But this willingness to do so is now coming to an end. Anyone who then has to read "absurd interviews" from a nuncio or cardinal "will eventually be overcome by grief and anger," the Jesuit added at the plenary assembly of the Central Committee of German Catholics.

Conceit as the key to abuse

In an interview with the portal katholisch.de, Mertes criticized Müller's statements on the church crisis as "clerical conceit that has solidified into dogma." This conceit, he said, is a key to the overall problem of abuse. The Jesuit also criticized the statement by the former head of the Roman Catholic Church's authority that the Church must reaffirm its rejection of practiced homosexuality because of the abuse cases. Mertes said there is a faction that wants to blame homosexuals for the crisis. Müller's statements were "incredibly bold" and "abysmal and profoundly wrong."

Bishops cannot be judged by laypeople

In an interview with the Canadian website LifeSite News on Wednesday, Müller said that bishops who have covered up abuse cannot be judged by laypeople within the Church. If a bishop fails to live up to his responsibility, he can only be held accountable by the Pope.

Klaus Mertes is the director of the Jesuit high school Sankt Blasien in the Black Forest. As the then Director of the Canisius College in Berlin, he made cases of abuse at the school public in 2010, thus initiating the debate. In 2014, he received the Herbert Haag Prize for Freedom in the Church.

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