Cardinal Müller:"I did not like the praise of the Freemasons for the Pope"

Cardinal Gerhard Müller: "What does clericalism mean? Homosexual inclinations are responsible for most of the cases of sexual abuse by clerics "

(Rome) While Pope Francis was preparing to sign a document on "human brotherhood" in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), yesterday he signed his signature with the Islamic Grandimam of Al-Azhar, an authority of Sunni Islam, Nuova Bussola Quotidiana published an interview last Sunday with Gerhard Cardinal Müller, former prefect of the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In it, the German cardinal again criticized the "clericalism" thesis and talked about "the real reason" for sexual abuse by clerics, but also about "the biggest problem" that the Church has today. He rejects allegations that there is "a plot" against Francis and makes no secret of the fact that he does not like the "great praise" Francis receives from the Freemasons.

NBQ: Cardinal Müller, in 20 days in the Vatican summit on sexual abuse will take place, a scandal that obscures the image of the Church, but also provokes many tensions internally ...

Cardinal Müller: I think that this topic must be understood, above all, in its true dimension. As much as it is a serious scandal, it is unjust to generalize because the abuse affects only a very limited section of priests. I would like to thank all the bishops, priests and deacons and other members of the Catholic Church who live according to the criteria of our Christian spirituality, and for their dedication to Jesus' mission. It is right that public opinion should become aware of this good work and the sacrifices made by our good shepherds to many people seeking the truth of their lives seeking the truth of God in Jesus Christ.Second, we must acknowledge that this phenomenon had its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, also as a result of the sexual revolution. Much has been done since then, and the number of cases has fallen sharply today. Moreover, one must ask why public opinion is motivated to speak only of it and not of all cases of abuse and crimes against children and young people that exist in the world: not only sexual but also largely non-sexual But also from other crimes such as abortion or the many denied opportunities to live with their father, mother, siblings, etc.

NBQ: That's true, but the Church faces a worrying phenomenon, and, as the case of ex-Cardinal McCarrick shows, it still has a hard time judging the past.

Cardinal Müller: Of course it is terrible for the Church that priests are involved: men who, instead of leading an exemplary life, misuse their mission; Representatives of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, who act like wolves. This is a perversion of their mission.

NBQ: But what are the reasons for the abuse of minors?

Cardinal Müller: Anyone who abuses will certainly not recognize the dignity of a minor who is a human being and how all human beings are of equal dignity. But there is also an uncontrolled sexuality. Man is called to use his sexuality in the sense intended by the Creator, as described in the beginning of Genesis.

"Homosexuality is an invention that has no foundation in human nature" 

NBQ: Most of the abuses committed by clerics are in fact homosexual acts.

Cardinal Müller: It is a fact that more than 80 percent of underage abuse victims are male and adolescents. We have to take note of this reality. These are statistics that can not be denied. Those who do not want to see this reality are accusing those who tell the truth to have something against homosexuals. But homosexuals do not exist, that's an invention. Obviously, they speak of it in order to obscure their own interests. 

But let us return to Genesis: there is a female and a male sexuality, nothing else. The man is created for the woman and the woman for the man, as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11). There is no homosexuality in the order of creation. This is an invention that has no basis in human nature. Homosexual inclinations are not an ontological but a psychological factor. Certain people, on the other hand, want to turn homosexuality into something ontological.

NBQ: The Canon of the Canon Code of Canon Law 1983 has disappeared, which states in the foregoing that clerics guilty of homosexual acts should be removed from office, stripped of all privileges and, in the most serious cases, dismissed. That, too, makes it more difficult today to intervene in cases like that of former Cardinal McCarrick. Who wanted the cancellation of this canon and why?

Cardinal Müller: I do not know who, but I think that it was the result of the general mood of that time: one does not want to punish people, but to aim at the positive. The intent is certainly good, but you can not deny the reality of human weakness.The people are admonished to help them do the right thing. Above all, the Church can not accept among priests a bad behavior that contradicts the will of God, because it destroys its own credibility. Unfortunately, there are those who have adopted the homo-ideology. How can one only accept the falseness of the world and carry it into the Church? We must feed on the Word of God, Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. These are the cornerstones of Catholic thought. We have to give modernity the good answer that comes from God. It is the world that needs salvation and not God, who brings the salvation the world needs.

"Petition against homosexual network in the Church is legitimate"

NBQ: In recent days, a petition has been launched to ask the Fathers attending the Vatican Summit to stop the homosexual network. One of the issues concerns the reintroduction of the Canon, which punishes homosexual acts.

Cardinal Müller: I think that this petition is legitimate. There are those in the Church who deny the statistical truth that the vast majority of the cases of abuse committed by priests were homosexual acts. But you can not escape this reality. Those who deny it do not want to solve the problem. The abuse committed against seminarians should not be underestimated either. This is a tremendous sin, a crime against the dignity of these men, but also against the parents who entrust their sons to the priesthood, against the bishop and against the seminary. A bishop who falls so low is a tremendous scandal. Do we imagine what Jesus would have done if one of his apostles had done to the other disciples? It's downright absurd to think such a thing. 

However, I am afraid that this initiative by the laity will also be neutralized by labeling it as a rebellion against the pope.

NBQ: That is a idee fixe: Cardinal Kasper has also spoken several times in recent days and it has been claimed there is a conspiracy for the resignation of Pope Francis.

Cardinal Müller: Unfortunately, in the Vatican, there are those who explain everything that happens in the Church by saying that there are enemies of the Pope who use internet sites to organize a plot: from Italy, the USA, Germany, France, all together just to make trouble for the pope. That's crazy. I do not know all the motivations of others, but a Catholic is always on the side of the Pope, even if he has other opinions on things to discuss. The true friends of the Pope are those who speak the truth, help him find the right path, and not those who want to push him in their direction.

"Clericalism? What's this? Do we really want to get into this polemic against ourselves? "

Cardinals Kasper and Marx

NBQ: At this point, the Pope and his closest associates point to clericalism when they talk about abuse cases.

Cardinal Müller: That's a misunderstanding. What is clericalism? Who defines it? Who is clerical? The word comes from the 19th century, from France and Italy, and served to attack the Church as an enemy of modern society. Do we really want to get into this polemic against ourselves? Or do we want to accuse Jesus of having used the clergy? Clergy is a Greek term that we find in Acts when the eleven apostles cast lots to replace Judas and transferred his "share" - cleros - to Mattias. Cleros is thus not a group of people, but the participation in the authority of Jesus Christ, which was given to the apostles and their successors. This is certainly not clericalism, guilty of sin against the sixth commandment. Real abuse of power is to engage in simony, careerism, or the courtier at the court of the pope to obtain a miter and to be acclaimed. If Machiavelli counts more in Church politics than the Gospel, that is abuse of power. To speak of clericalism, or to blame celibacy, is the wrong path that distracts from the real reason for the problem.

NBQ: In fact, there are quite a few who question celibacy in response to cases of abuse.

Cardinal Müller: On the contrary, we have to take the sixth commandment seriously: chastity as an attitude and virtue. This is not easy in this sexualized culture, but it is necessary if we want to find a way out of this disaster, which incidentally affects the whole of society. The Church has a way: we need to pick up on our anthropology again. The Church can not be seen as an organization that distributes power and prestige. It is the family of God that brings familiarity between us all, responsibility of one for the other and respect for children and youth. The other person is never to be regarded as an object of greed. The other is always subject, never object. He deserves respect.

NBQ: With regard to the summit at the end of February, there are already those who try to profit from it and claim that homosexuality is to be recognized: it is not important whether a priest has homosexual inclinations, it is important that he live in chastity. In Germany there are bishops who have already declared themselves in this sense.

Cardinal Müller: That would be a crime against the Church: Using the sin to establish or normalize a sin against the sixth commandment is a crime. There is no way that one can legitimize homosexual or even disordered sexual acts. When we believe in God, we believe that the Ten Commandments are a direct expression of the saving will of God towards us. These are not external laws such as the positive laws that the state enacts. They are the substance of man's morality and his happiness. They are an expression of the life and truth of God.

"Some want to overthrow Christian anthropology"

NBQ: So you risk overturning Christian anthropology ...

Cardinal Müller: That's what some are aiming at: They want man to define himself. God is for them only a reference point for their own self-justification. Some people have written to me that in their youth they had certain homosexual experiences, but then they overcame everything and now live happily in marriage. These are not ideas, but real experiences of people we need to listen to. When sexuality awakens, there may be moments of confusion, but that does not mean that there are rooted inclinations. Some, however, want to turn homosexuality into an ontological condition.

NBQ: This brings us to that pastoral document for persons with homosexual inclinations, published in 1986 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in which a homosexual network inside and outside the Church has been accused of overthrowing Catholic doctrine.

Cardinal Müller: Yes, they usually do not reveal themselves publicly, but you can recognize them by some strange ways of behaving, by the way they present themselves, by certain opinions. They support each other, personally attack those who stand in the way of their agenda, bend the doctrine of the Church for their own purposes and constantly polemicize against the orthodox Catholics. That's how they expose themselves. In this way, they destroy not only the doctrine of faith but also the people they claim to help. They use the people who have homosexual inclinations to help their ideology to victory. They misuse these people ideologically.

"A Papal Document Can not Change the Anthropology Founded in God's Creation"

NBQ: Even the Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian bishops, it claims that there has been a turning point in the Church towards homosexuality, that there is no moral censure, and that this can be inferred from the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia.

Cardinal Müller: That is not true, but even if that were so, a papal document can not change the anthropology grounded in God's creation. It is possible that a papal document or the Magisterium of the Church does not well explain the facts of revelation and creation, but the Magisterium is not Christian doctrine. There is the way to understand the Magisterium as if it had nothing to do with the Catholic tradition. The Pope is treated as if he were an oracle. Whatever he says becomes the indisputable truth. But that is not the case: many things are private opinions of the Pope, things that can be discussed. If the Pope said today that the parts are more than the whole, we would have changed the structures of mathematics, of geometry. That's ridiculous. Or if the pope said today that we are no longer allowed to eat animal meat, it would still not be illegal for any Catholic to eat meat.

NBQ: You want to say hypothetically: Should the pope write a "vegan" encyclical, would it not be binding for any Catholic? How is that?

Cardinal Müller: Because that is not part of the materia fidei. The authority of the pope is very limited. Some only see his public authority, that which is reported by the mass media, and they use it according to their own thinking. In reality, they do not accept the authority of the pope as established in our ecclesiology.

"There is a gross ignorance, even among cardinals"

Francis with the "monk" Enzo Bianchi

NBQ: Speaking of ecclesiology. In recent days, at La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, we have lamented the case of an ecumenical Mass in Milan, where a Baptist "pastor" preached the Gospel, gave a sermon and distributed the Eucharist after standing side by side with the priest during the consecration. And the pastor said that transubstantiation is just one of several ways of understanding the Eucharist. Unfortunately, this type of ecumenism is not an isolated case.

Cardinal Müller: And a bishop would have the duty to intervene because, among priests, bishops and even cardinals, there is unfortunately a gross ignorance: they are servants of the Word of God, but they do not know it, and they do not know the doctrine of faith. When we speak of transubstantiation, the Fourth Lateran Council, the Tridentinum, and also the Second Vaticanum, as well as some encyclicals such as Mystery Fidei (1965), have declared that the Church is the reality of the actual transformation of bread and wine into the substance of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. The Lutherans believe in the real presence, but not in the Catholic sense. They do not believe in the transformation of bread and wine. That's not a little difference. In England at the time of Edward VI. and Elizabeth I, in the 16th century, those who believed in transubstantiation were liable to be put to death. Many Catholics have suffered martyrdom, and it has not been that they have lost their lives only for one of many ways of seeing the Eucharist, but for the reality of the Sacrament. 

Saint Thomas [Aquinas] said that it is a grave sin when bishops and priests do not know the doctrine of the Church. That is their duty. Of course the priests, like the one in Milan, have read something of third-rate theologians who write and talk garbage without knowing the doctrine of the faith. But that can not justify a downright blasphemous act. The Protestants do not accept the sacrament of Holy Orders in their faith, so they can not stand by the side of a Catholic priest. If the pastor allows this, he denies the sacrament of Holy Orders and makes himself a Protestant. Even with the Orthodox, whose sacramental priesthood we recognize, concelebration is not possible because full unity is lacking. 

NBQ: But what can a believer do if he is at such a Mass?

Cardinal Müller: He has to protest publicly. He has the right to leave or, if he is able, he can say something: "I protest against this desecration of the Holy Mass"; "I came to celebrate the Catholic Mass, not to participate in a consecration of a pastor unrelated to the Catholic faith." What has happened in the Milan parish has nothing to do with ecumenism. It is a blow to the real ecumenism.

NBQ: What is real ecumenism?

Cardinal Müller: There is the decree of the Second Vatican Council Unitatis redintegratio, which describes the principles of Catholic ecumenism in the first two chapters. There is no general ecumenism, but ecumenism according to the principles of the Catholic faith; and the others have ecumenism according to their principles. With the other Christian denominations, there is not only a difference in the contents of the faith, but also in the hermeneutics of the faith.

"Abuse to Protestantise and Islamise the Church"

NBQ: Holidays have become dangerous for Catholics. After the anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation with all its false ecumenism, the 800 years of the encounter of St. Francis of Assisi with the Sultan follow: and already there are Islam courses being taught in the parishes and imams are invited into churches to explain who Jesus is - for Islam.

Cardinal Müller: Certainly, but I'll bet the pastor does not go to the mosque to explain the Council of Nicaea. It is an insult to us to assert that Jesus is only a human being and not the Son of God. How can you invite someone to a church to be insulted?Unfortunately, Catholicity today has a bad conscience because of one's faith and one always kneels before the others. First, the year of Luther, now that of St. Francis of Assisi: they are abused to protest the church and Islamize it. This is not a real dialogue. Some of us have lost faith and want to become slaves to others in order to be loved.

NBQ: What's the biggest problem for the Church today?

Cardinal Müller: The relativization of the faith. It seems complicated today to proclaim the Catholic faith in its completeness and with a clear conscience. But the world of today deserves the truth, and the truth is the truth of God the Father, the truth of Jesus Christ, and the truth of the Holy Spirit. The false compromises are of no use to the man of today. Instead of proclaiming the belief that educating people, teaching people, one tends to relativise, and always say a little less, less, less, less ... An example: Instead of explaining the meaning of marriage and its indissolubility, they look for exceptions and go backwards. Instead of talking about the dignity of the priesthood, its glory, and the radiance of the truth of the sacraments, everything is reduced to an opportunity to be together. There is a flattening of Christianity. It is reduced to a form to please the people of today. But that's how we trick people. When we come together with people of other religions, we can not unite in a common belief. Faith is thereby reduced to a philosophical belief, God becomes a transcendent being, and then we say that Allah or God, the Father of Jesus Christ, is the same. Even the god of deism has nothing to do with the God of Christians.

"Christian fraternity does not have the fraternity of the French Revolution as a measuring stick"

NBQ: The Pope insists very much on the concept of a universal brotherhood. How should it be understood to avoid this confusion?

Cardinal Müller: I did not like all the great praise of the Masons for the Pope. Their brotherhood is not the brotherhood of Christians in Jesus Christ, it is much less. We must not take this as a measure of fraternity, which comes from the French Revolution. That's an ideology like communism. Who defines who my brother is? We are brothers to one another because we are children of God because we acknowledge Christ, who became man. That is the basis of brotherhood. 

In the sense of creation, we are all children of God. In this sense, we also speak of universal brotherhood: one must not kill; even in war, the one I kill is my brother. We all have a Father in heaven, but this Father revealed Himself in the Holy Land to Moses, to the prophets, and finally to Jesus Christ. If we do not raise man's natural brotherhood to fraternity in Jesus Christ, we reject the supernatural dimension and the natural grace. There is no universal religion, there is a universal religiosity, a religious dimension that pushes every man to the mystery. Sometimes one hears absurd ideas, such as that the Pope is the "head of a world religion," but that is ridiculous. Peter is Pope because of his confessio, his confession of faith: "You are Christ, the Son of the living God". That's the pope, not the head of the UN.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Picture: NBQ 

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG