On Sunday, March 27th, the well-known German children’s TV program Die Sendung mit der Maus dedicated an episode this past Sunday, March 27th, to transgender people and their transitioning process. The episode sparked a wave of outrage among viewers and concerned parents. Asked to comment on the matter by Tichys Einblick, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former bishop of Regensburg and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until 2017, issued the following statement which was released on March 30th:
Human beings are born as human beings and not as animals, plants, or raw materials, without someone having asked for their consent beforehand. We exist personally as corporeal beings and cannot decide whether we want to exist as pure spirit or as angels. Since the male or female sexuality is part of the expression of our individual body, we can not change it essentially, but either develop positively within its confines or rebel against it to our detriment. The only free choice of human beings is to decide whether they self-destructively want to eviscerate themselves completely, or to mutilate themselves partially. Our decisive duty during the time of growing up as a child and young adult is to wholeheartedly accept ourselves as a unity of body and soul without inferiority complexes.
When self-mutilation of spirit, soul and body is ideologically-politically peddled as alleged “self-determination,” it is nothing less than a grave sin against the well-being and salvation of children and young people who are in the process of maturing and finding their identity. Hopefully, they have good parents and friends who encourage them to affirm themselves as human beings in the manner of men or women. According to the Christian faith, the baptized understand themselves in Jesus Christ as sons and daughters of God, their Creator, Redeemer and Finisher.
