Cardinal Gerhard Müller attends the funeral Mass for Australian Cardinal George Pell in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in this file photo from Jan. 14, 2023. Photo: CNS photo/Paul Harin Regensburg (KNA) The Catholic Bishops’ Conference has rejected Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller’s criticism of its approach to political extremism. “The German bishops are neither opportunistic nor anti-democratic when they take part in demonstrations against the right or the left,” Matthias Kopp, press spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference, told the newspapers of the Bavarian Media Group (Friday). “On the contrary, they fulfil their social responsibility just as they have sent a clear signal in their declaration against ethnic nationalism.”
This signal has “met with overwhelming approval in the society of our country”, the spokesperson added. The Bishops’ Conference is also in no way “making itself an election assistant to the current government”, said Kopp. “Such a perception is absurd.”
In an interview with the Catholic weekly newspaper “Die Tagespost”, Müller had criticised a declaration unanimously adopted by the German bishops in February. The paper describes the AfD as unelectable for Christians.
In this context, Müller urged restraint: “As a church, we must be careful not to interfere directly in the battle of the parties with doctrinal and moral authority, so to speak. The German Bishops’ Conference must not act as an electoral assistant to the ‘traffic light’ and should maintain a prophetic distance from secular power.”