BCP: Reflection on Card. Müller’s critique of the Continental Synodal Assembly in Prague (5-12 Feb 2023)
21 February 2023
In an interview with kath.net, Cardinal Müller criticized Bishop Bätzing’s speech in Prague as well as the German Synodal Path, calling it a sect. The cardinal said: “The protagonists of German alternative Catholicism used the Synodal meeting in Prague – as expected – to flaunt their felt, but unproven, moral-spiritual superiority over eastern traditional Catholicism.”
The cardinal explained that because the German Synodal sect is “diametrically opposed to Catholic faith… it will cause Christianity in Germany to evaporate. Millions are leaving the Church in Germany,” he said, “and the remaining Catholics become dechristianized… The whole establishment of German-Catholic ecclesiology is false and suicidal.”
What specifically did Müller criticize about Bätzing?
The cardinal referred to Bätzing’s statement, saying: “The head of the German Bishops’ Conference caused the greatest controversy in Prague by saying that he is disturbed by the traditional teaching of the Church.” Next the cardinal quoted the Apostle Paul’s words to Timothy that applied to Bätzing, whom he likened to those that cannot endure sound doctrine: “For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.” (2Tim 4:1-4)
Cardinal Müller also criticized the German Synodal sect for “declaring the Christian faith to be the religion of freedom and salvation” in contrast to the so-called fixation on sins. This German heretical attitude, as Card. Müller said, passed over the apostolic primordial confession that Christ died for our sins (1Cor 15:3). And concerning freedom, he emphasized that “the call to freedom is connected with exhortation: ‘Christ set us free, so that we should remain free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be fastened again to the yoke of slavery (of sin).’” The German Synodal sect preaches a false freedom which is, in fact, the slavery of sin. Therefore, Cardinal Müller exhorts us: “Do not make freedom a pretext for fornication, impurity, lust, idolatry…” (cf. Gal 5:1.13-25)
And how did Card. Müller comment on the gender ideology that promotes LGBTQ?
“The homosexual and gender ideologies, which contradict every scientific, philosophical, and theological anthropology, have replaced the hermeneutics of the Catholic faith in the ‘being different’ Catholicism of the German Synodal sect. However, supernatural and salvific faith comes from hearing the Word of God and not … from the voice of the people and their tribunes.”
Cardinal Müller further said that he did not approve of the efforts of bishops who have succumbed to transhumanist tendencies and want to welcome LGBTQ people into the Church. They do not demand that these people show genuine repentance, which is the condition of salvation, and do not even allow them to repent. Card. Müller says: “Persons with erotic attraction to members of the same sex do not need hypocritical gestures of inclusion in the Church from prelates who no longer see themselves as servants of the Word of God, but as representatives of a transhumanist lobby.”
As to how a person is included in the Church of Christ, it is not only by baptism, but also by personal conversion, repentance and the acceptance of salvation in Jesus Christ. The cardinal says: “All people are created out of God’s love and redeemed from sin through the blood of Christ. Christ came to save sinners and lead them to the path of salvation through repentance and conversion.” Furthermore, the cardinal explained how it is possible to walk the path of salvation, the path of God’s commandments, which are connected with denying oneself, carrying the daily cross and following Christ: “With the help of God’s grace, it is possible to keep God’s commandments, to overcome unruly inclinations, to avoid sin, and to do natural and supernatural good.” With these words, Card. Müller refutes the erroneous theory of so-called inborn homosexuality. This error is ideologically forced upon public opinion in order to eliminate repentance, as if sinners cannot, or even must not, repent anymore.
The cardinal also refutes the current heretical attitudes appealing to God’s love to minimize sin: “Christ did not come to explain away and minimize sin by appealing to God’s love, but to draw its deadly sting (sin) from our mortal being and to enable us to live in true righteousness and holiness following Christ.” (cf. Eph 4:24)
To clarify the question of sin and forgiveness, Card. Müller quotes from the Epistle of John: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us… And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.” (1Jn 1:10) The synodal path completely boycotts these and other such verses of Scripture.
Card. Müller admits that many bishops have betrayed their vocation. He says: “A bishop who, contrary to the nature of his office, denies the God-estranging and self-destructive power of sin in order to make the Church vulnerable and to present her as changeable has not understood the mystery of salvation from sin and has failed in his vocation as a successor of the apostles.”
Bishop Bätzing stated in Prague that he perceived considerable tensions in the Church. Cardinal Müller responds to it saying: “The reasons for the ‘considerable tensions’ perceived by the co-chairman of the German Synodal Way in the Catholic Church are not rooted in cultural incongruities of [different] peoples, but in heretical contradiction to the Catholic doctrine of faith.”
Cardinal Müller describes the synodal path as “doctrinally incompetent and canonically illegitimate”. He explains that “it is in apparent (glaring) contradiction with the doctrine of the nature and universal mission of the Church of Christ”. Müller literally says that Bätzing’s “analysis is appalling”. During the Prague assembly, Bätzing expressed his rejection of God’s revelation entrusted to the Church, saying: “This is not my faith, not my image of Christ and the Church.” The reality is that Bätzing’s faith and his false Christ and heretical image of the Church are diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church, that is, to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the entire Tradition. So Bätzing’s faith and his false Christ do not give him or anyone else the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and salvation. To follow this synodal path that Bätzing represents is to be heading for destruction.
None of the conclusions of this false synodal journey are in any way binding on the faithful, because they obviously contradict God’s revelation. The faithful must not obey either the bishop or the pope if these have deviated from the teachings of the Church given by divine revelation. Cardinal Müller commented on this topic as follows: “The faithful are bound by ‘religious obedience’ to the bishops in matters of faith and morals only when the Roman Pontiff – or the college of bishops together with him – defines a certain truth in accordance with divine revelation…” It is clear to every Catholic that breaking God’s commandments by legalizing LGBTQ or public Pachamama idolatry or the invalid Pope Francis’s consecration to demons in Canada is in obvious contradiction with God’s revelation. In addition, it brings God’s anathema, expulsion from the Church according to Gal 1:8-9, on those who have betrayed divine revelation.
Cardinal Müller said about the Magisterium of the Church: “The teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, i.e. revealed by God…”
The synodal path is proof that currently the teaching office has been abused against the truths revealed by God. Today the Church is in a state of Sede Vacante. Similarly, in the present-day Church there is an absence of the Magisterium represented by the Vatican Congregation, which is under the rule of an invalid pope.
Let us recall how Cardinal Müller evaluates the Continental Assembly in Prague: “The protagonists of German alternative Catholicism used the Synodal meeting in Prague – as expected…”
How does God evaluate this Prague pseudo-synod, which promotes the sodomistic anti-gospel? “If anyone, even an angel from heaven, preaches any other gospel, let him be accursed.” (Gal 1:8-9) The presidents of the European bishops’ conferences and all other participants are under God’s anathema.
BCP – the voice of one crying in the wilderness
