Two cardinals—Raymond Burke (U.S.) and Gerhard Müller (Germany)—called for the trial and punishment of Catholic leaders in Germany after the country’s Catholic Church officially approved the blessing of same-sex couples.
As we reported before, the German Catholic Church went “reform-mad” during its Fifth Synodal Assembly in Frankfurt, March 9-11, where not only same-sex partnerships were on the agenda, but also the legitimacy of self-assigned gender, the re-examination of compulsory celibacy of priests, and preaching authority of women and non-ordained men.
These reforms not only gave way to a fair amount of outrage among the faithful but deeply divided the highest-ranking men of the cloth as well, it appears. The two cardinals believe that the “heretic” Church leaders complicit in these reforms—particularly in approving the blessing of homosexual relationships—should be tried and removed from their posts immediately.
“Whether it’s a departure, heretical teaching and denial of one of the doctrines of the faith—or apostasy in the sense of simply walking away from Christ and from His teaching in the Church to embrace some other form of religion—these are crimes,” U.S. Cardinal Burke said, accusing the “revolutionaries” within the Church of ignoring the Vatican’s authority and its opposition to these changes.
Indeed, even Pope Francis—who has also endorsed certain progressive reforms within the Church before—spoke out against what was happening in Germany last year, arguing that local bishops do not bear the authority to propagate “new ways of governance and new approaches to doctrine and morals,” thus calling the changes “unlawful.”
Although it is clear where the Pope stands on the issue, his criticism seems to be coming from a more pragmatic understanding than a moral one—protesting not the subject of the reforms but the undermining of central Church authority. “Prior to an agreed understanding at the level of the universal Church, it would not be permissible to initiate new official structures or doctrines in the dioceses,” the statement from the Holy See said.
Cardinals Burke and Müller, however, primarily focus on the morality of the question and its relation to existing Catholic theology. “These are sins against Christ Himself and, obviously then, of the most serious nature,” Cardinal Burke said, adding that “the Code of Canon Law provides the appropriate sanctions.”
Cardinal Muller struck a similarly harsh tone when addressing the issue and its appropriate punishment. “There must be a trial, and they must be sentenced, and they must be removed from their office if they are not converting themselves, and they are not accepting the Catholic doctrine,” he said.
According to the German cardinal, the decisions taken by the Synodal Assembly amount to the majority of German bishops voting
explicitly against the revealed doctrine, and the revealed faith of the Catholic Church and of all our Christian thinking, against the Bible, the word of God in the Holy Scripture and in the apostolic tradition and in the defined doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Burke and Müller are not alone in calling for the changes to be revoked and the bishops punished. Last year, over a hundred bishops from around the world issued an open letter to their German counterparts, urging them to stop pursuing the illicit reforms and cease the Synodal Assembly entirely.
The ‘Synodal Path’ is the church committee behind organizing the Assembly, entirely dedicated to the discussion of four vaguely defined topics: sexual ethics, the structure of church governance, women’s role in the church, and the vocation of priesthood. It is not hard to imagine what direction these issues are being pushed, and chances are, there will be more of such reforms. After all, if the rogue German church would not heed Pope Francis’ direct warning, there’s no one else to stop this train now.
