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Cardinal Gerhard Müller on EWTN, Oct. 24, 2019.

(LifeSiteNews) – In the face of persistent LGBT promotion within the Catholic Church, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has decried LGBT ideology, stating that same-sex “marriage” or even blessings are “not in accordance with the Word of God.” 

In a yet to be released interview on EWTN’s Cara a Cara (Face to Face) program, Cardinal Müller criticized the push for the Church to become more “gay friendly,” a push that has been renewed in recent days by key cardinals and the German Bishops’ Conference.

The 74-year-old former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) said that the current “speculation” over whether the Church would offer blessings or marriages to same-sex couples “has no basis in Revelation.”

“It is a human thought, but it is not in accordance with the Word of God,” the cardinal stated. 

“God created man, not these priests who think like the world of today, according to this materialistic anthropology, who distinguish sexuality, sexual pleasure, from the responsibility to procreate sons and daughters,” Müller said.

Addressing clergy who push the idea of allowing same-sex couples to approach the sacraments, Müller observed how they “speak of compassion,” when in fact compassion, along with the sacraments, “comes from God.”

“There are many who have totally distanced themselves from the Catholic faith,” he said. “They present themselves as if they are priests, but they are not faithful.”

In contrast, Müller noted how a “good” life is “when we live according to God’s commandments,” as otherwise “we can fall into sin.”

Church cannot be ‘gay friendly’ or conform to ‘ideologies’

In May 2021, the CDF released a note reiterating Church teaching about whether the Church had “the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex,” firmly rejecting any such possibility. 

Some months before in October 2020, Pope Francis had noted the “incongruity” of speaking of “homosexual marriage,” but issued a personal call for civil unions instead. “But what we have to have is a law of civil union [ley de convicencia civil], so they have the right to be legally covered,” Francis declared. “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that,” Francis said. 

Speaking to EWTN, however, Cardinal Müller stated that regarding same-sex unions “the doctrine of the Church is absolutely clear.” This doctrine “has its foundation in the anthropology revealed in the Old and New Testament, in creation and also in the institution of marriage as a sacrament, marriage made up of one man and one woman.”

While Catholics “have all the respect for these people who have these tendencies,” Müller added that “for Christ we can no longer be ‘gay friendly’ or not ‘gay friendly.’”

Müller reiterated the Church’s teaching of sexuality and marriage, saying “we don’t know exactly where these tendencies come from, but sexuality has its unique place, real, moral, sacramental place, within the marriage of a man and a woman.”

Such perennial teaching and consistent doctrine is rooted “in the Word of God,” he said, and in the “Revelation which is finally realized in Jesus Christ.”

“We cannot change according to ideologies,” the former head of the CDF said. Nor is gender ideology “a science,” said Müller, observing that its advocates “change genders according to their pleasures. And this is not a science.”

Doubling down on the Church’s adherence to doctrine rather than modern ideologies, Müller highlighted how appealing to “science” is not a foolproof argument. “Even racism and slavery in the past were justified by science,” he said. “Communism said it was based on science.”

Neither Pope nor bishops define doctrine

Müller also defended his former Congregation, the CDF, saying its work was “most important, because the primary, fundamental task of the Pope is not to give interviews but to preserve the revealed doctrine, the revealed faith.”

The CDF has a key role in assisting the Pope in this, Müller said, reiterating the Pope’s inability to change doctrine, in an apparent rebuttal of Pope Francis’ support for civil unions.  

“The doctrine of the Church is not defined by the Pope, by this or any other Pope, or by the bishops. The doctrine of the Church has its foundation in the eschatological Revelation in Jesus Christ.”

The Church and Her members “have to be faithful to Revelation, to the Word of God” and it is not “a political party,” the cardinal stated.

Müller’s defense of the CDF comes as Pope Francis recently demoted the Congregation’s secretary, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, the driving force behind the 2021 note banning same-sex blessings. The move was rumored to be in retaliation for Morandi’s role in the document, but asked about this, Müller confessed ignorance as to the Pope’s motives. “It may be, it may not be” an act of vengeance, he said.

Müller against European prelates

Müller’s comments come in the wake of renewed LGBT promotion from high-ranking prelates. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community and Relator General of the Synod on Synodality, called for a change in the Church’s teaching on homosexual acts. Asked by reporters how he approaches the Church’s determination that homosexual acts are sinful, the cardinal responded, “I believe that this is false.”

The German Bishops’ Conference officially supported the #OutinChurch LGBT campaign, which saw 125 Catholic Church employees, including clergy, come out as homosexual. The Conference echoed Hollerich’s words, calling for a change in Church doctrine on sexuality, and demanding the Church “must not withhold the blessing of God and access to the sacraments from LGBTIQ+ persons and couples.”

Meanwhile, on February 3, Germany’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx also demanded change in teaching on sexuality, supporting the ordination of homosexuals to the priesthood, and suggesting that clerical celibacy should be dropped.

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