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December 12, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — It is blasphemy for pro-abortion Catholic politicians to receive Holy Communion, and that bishops and priests are not refusing them the Eucharist is part of the legacy of disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, said German Cardinal Gerhard Müller.
The one-time head of the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Müller discussed with LifeSite’s John-Henry Westen the damage to the Catholic Church caused by McCarrick, whose swift fall in 2018 came after decades of homosexual predations, all the while wielding power and influence in the Church.
Among the damage, and of particular significance to the pro-life movement, was that McCarrick headed up a 2004 commission of American bishops to study the question of whether or not Catholic pro-abortion politicians should be denied Holy Communion, Westen noted.
“Rome intervened,” he said, when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as head of the CDF sent the bishops the letter “Worthiness to receive Holy Communion,” which stated that pro-abortion Catholic politicians must be denied the Eucharist.
However, when McCarrick received it, “he hid it from the rest of [the] bishops, and in fact, he falsely said that the Vatican was fine with bishops themselves deciding on the question,” Westen said.
Müller reiterated in his response that pro-abortion Catholic politicians cannot receive Holy Communion.
“Nobody can accept full communion with Jesus Christ, a sacramental Communion, if you are in the basic moral things absolutely against the will of Jesus Christ,” he told Westen.
“You cannot say to Jesus, ‘Lord, Lord,’ … and on the other hand not to do His will,” he added.
“That is a contradiction, and you cannot follow this contradiction in the receiving of the Holy Sacrament. That is what John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, in this time, they were saying, this is [the] basis of our Catholic faith, the link between your life and your faith.”
Müller was also clear that priests and bishops must have the courage to refuse a pro-abortion public figure Holy Communion, no matter how high-profile he or she may be.
“Everybody is equal before God, and they are not princes or presidents or emperors or kings,” said Müller.
St. Ambrose of Milan told “the powerful Emperor Theodosius, you cannot kill and come to Holy Communion. He excommunicated him. This was courage,” he pointed out.
“We must also … in our times say very clearly, ‘You are not allowed to kill persons and if you are continuing so, you cannot receive the Holy Communion and if you receive the Holy Communion this is blasphemy’,” the cardinal added.
Hiding the CDF letter was just part of the harm McCarrick caused the Church, Müller said. “I think the former Cardinal McCarrick made several big damages against the Catholic Church, not only in the States but all over the world,” with “problems he provoked with his life against the commandments of God.”
“Suppressing of this letter of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith is only one part of his dishonest behavior and his damaging as a judge making his own politics,” Müller observed. “He was more linked to politicians and to power than to [the] truth of the Catholic faith and that is very, very sad.”
“I don’t want to be [the] public accuser of him; I will speak only about these facts and about the effects of his behavior,” added the cardinal. “In the end God … alone can judge him, and we are not judges of other people, but we [have the] full right to speak of the negative effects for the Catholic Church.”
Westen and Müller also discussed Pope Francis’ call to vice president and pro-abortion Catholic Joe Biden after the U.S. election, even though the electoral college will cast the deciding vote only on Monday.
The Vatican reported that the two men spoke about climate change but not abortion, Westen noted.
Abortion “is murder, a killing of innocent babies,” Müller said.
“Therefore, I hope that the Pope did speak about this point, that it is very important, not a matter of politics but a matter of morals and the basis of our anthropology … Everybody gets his rights from God, and no one has the right to kill another person,” he said.
“A politician who names himself a believing Catholic, he cannot go into politics promoting abortion as a human right, because as Pope Francis says, it’s killing a person, a living person,” he noted.
“You cannot say, ‘Ah, yes, the other side, they are not doing enough for the immigrants and therefore we can counterbalance with this,’ that’s not the order,” Müller added. “The basics of human rights is the right to live, and the other points are coming later.”
The “most important thing is to speak of God, [of] Jesus Christ as the Savior of everybody, of eternal life,” said the cardinal.
“Jesus didn’t found the Church for speaking about things which are of secondary importance, but of the main importance, and that is [that] everybody will live in grace and will come to eternal life,” Müller said.
“That is the mission of the Catholic Church, and the Pope and the bishops … have this mission by means of their sacramental ordination, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to mediate the grace in the sacraments.”