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Cardinal Brandmüller addressing the 'Humanae Vitae at 50' conference in Rome, Oct. 28, 2017.Diane Montagna / LifeSiteNews

February 20, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Today, the Austrian Catholic news website Kath.net published a short video featuring Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, one of the two remaining dubia cardinals who just published an open letter to the participants of the sex abuse summit starting tomorrow in Rome.

In this letter, Brandmüller and Cardinal Raymond Burke asked the participating bishops to break the “silence” and to address homosexuality as the root cause of the grave sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

In his brief statement, the German cardinal explains the reason they sent the February 19 open letter, saying that “it was here about stressing that – as repellent as the crime of sexual abuse of children and adolescents is – the true root is to be found in the spreading of homosexuality among the clergy.” In his view, it is now up to the participants of the sex abuse summit to “search for the roots of this disastrous evil.”

Finally, Cardinal Brandmüller points to the especially “frightening and shocking” aspect of homosexually active priests, inasmuch as they commit sacrileges. He says: “What is so especially frightening and terrible with this phenomenon of homosexuality in the clergy is that thereby the Sacraments are being abused.”

“Priests,” he explains, “who with such acts on their conscience, approach the altar, are committing sacrileges, and thus the most sacred of our Faith and of the Church is being dragged through the mud.” Thus, the German prelate adds, these are “not only crimes against men, but also against the Holy God Himself.”

In their February 19 open letter, Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller comment on homosexual networks when they write: “The plague of the homosexual agenda has been spread within the Church, promoted by organized networks and protected by a climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence.” They also reject the idea that clericalism is at the root of the abuse problem, and add that “the first and primary fault of the clergy does not rest in the abuse of power but in having gone away from the truth of the Gospel.”

Below are Cardinal Brandmüller’s remarks:

Some faithful are asking themselves why Cardinal Burke and I have now addressed with an open letter the presidents of the bishops' conferences who are now assembling in Rome. We thereby wanted to stress that – as repellent as the crime of sexual abuse of children and adolescents is – the true root is to be found in the spreading of homosexuality among the clergy. Thus is now the task of the bishops who are now assembled to search for the roots of this disastrous evil, whose scale has come to light only in the recent years. We hope to have pointed this out with our letter.

What is so especially frightening and terrible with the phenomenon of homosexuality in the clergy is that thereby the Sacraments are being abused. Priests who with such acts on their consciences approach the altar are committing sacrileges, and thus the most sacred of our Faith and of the Church is being dragged through the mud.

These are crimes not only against man, but also against the Holy God Himself.

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Dr. Maike Hickson was born and raised in Germany. She holds a PhD from the University of Hannover, Germany, after having written in Switzerland her doctoral dissertation on the history of Swiss intellectuals before and during World War II. She now lives in the U.S. and is married to Dr. Robert Hickson, and they have been blessed with two beautiful children. She is a happy housewife who likes to write articles when time permits.

Dr. Hickson published in 2014 a Festschrift, a collection of some thirty essays written by thoughtful authors in honor of her husband upon his 70th birthday, which is entitled A Catholic Witness in Our Time.

Hickson has closely followed the papacy of Pope Francis and the developments in the Catholic Church in Germany, and she has been writing articles on religion and politics for U.S. and European publications and websites such as LifeSiteNews, OnePeterFive, The Wanderer, Rorate Caeli, Catholicism.org, Catholic Family News, Christian Order, Notizie Pro-Vita, Corrispondenza Romana, Katholisches.info, Der Dreizehnte,  Zeit-Fragen, and Westfalen-Blatt.