Gerhard Ludwig Müller

He was born in Finthen, a borough of Mainz, then in West Germany. After graduating from Willigis Episcopal High School in Mainz, he studied philosophy and theology in Mainz, Munich and Freiburg, Germany. In 1977, he received his Doctorate of Divinity under Cardinal Karl Lehmann for his thesis on the Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Müller was ordained as a priest of the Diocese of Mainz, Germany, on 11 February 1978 by Cardinal Hermann Volk. He then served as a pastor of three parishes. In 1986, Müller was appointed to the chair of dogmatic theology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he remains an honorary professor.[1]

Pope John Paul II appointed him as Bishop of Regensburg, Germany, on 1 October 2002. He was ordained to the episcopacy on 24 November 2002, with Friedrich Wetter serving as the principal consecrator; his principal co-consecrators included Karl Lehmann, Vinzenz Guggenberger, and Manfred Müller. Gerhard Ludwig Müller elected "Dominus Iesus" ("Jesus is Lord") as his episcopal motto, which is derived from Romans 10:9.[2]

On 20 December 2007, Pope Benedict XVI reappointed Müller for another five years as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). On 17 January 2009, he was also appointed as a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.[3] On 12 June 2012, Müller was appointed as a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education for a renewable term of five years[4] and was also appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

In the Conference of German Bishops, Müller was Chairman of the Ecumenical Commission, Deputy Chairman of the Commission of the Doctrine of the Faith, and a member of the World Church Commission. He was also Vice Chairman of the Association of Christian Churches in Germany (ACK) and the first President of the Society for the Promotion of Eastern Church Institute in Regensburg, Germany.

As a personal friend of Pope Benedict XVI, he was mandated to prepare the publication of the Opera Omnia, i.e., a series of books that will collect in a single edition all of Pope Benedict's writings.[5] Müller has written more than 400 works on dogmatic theology, ecumenism, revelation, hermeneutics, the presbytery, and the diaconate.[6]

On 2 July 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Müller to a five-year term as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and made him an archbishop as well.[7] He became ex officio the President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the International Theological Commission, and the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.[8]

Müller said he hoped to halt the "growing polarization between traditionalists and progressives [which] is threatening the unity of the Church and generating strong tensions among its members".[9] He continued by commenting on "traditionalists against progressives or whatever you would call them. This must be overcome[;] we need to find a new and fundamental unity in the Church and individual countries. Unity in Christ, not a unity produced according to a program and later invoked by a partisan speaker. We are not a community of people aligned to a party program, or a community of scientific research[;] our unity is gifted to us. We believe in the one Church united in Christ."

In an interview published on 1 February 2015, Müller objected to the criticism of the Church for its mishandling of clerical sexual abuse cases and for its continued condemnation of contraception, same-sex marriage, and declared incapacity to ordain women. He said "Targeted discreditation campaigns against the Catholic Church in North America and also here in Europe have led to clerics in some areas being insulted in public. An artificially created fury is growing here which sometimes reminds one of a pogrom sentiment." His remarks were denounced by a variety of German politicians.[10]

On 24 November 2012 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.[11] In November 2012, Müller said that traditionalist and progressive camps that see the Second Vatican Council as breaking with the truth both espouse a "heretical interpretation" of the council and its objectives. What Pope Benedict XVI had described as "the hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in continuity" is, for Müller, the "only possible interpretation according to the principles of Catholic theology."[12]

On 19 February 2014, Müller was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.[13]

In 2015, Müller described how he viewed the role of the CDF when the pope was not a theologian as Pope Benedict XVI had been. He said: "The arrival of a theologian like Benedict XVI in the chair of St. Peter was no doubt an exception. ...Pope Francis is also more pastoral and our mission at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is to provide the theological structure of a pontificate."[14] Andrea Tornielli of Vatican Insider criticized Muller for inventing a new role not found in the statutes defining the CDF's role, adding that Muller was making far more public pronouncements than his predecessors were accustomed to.[15][16]

On 1 July 2017, Pope Francis named Luis Ladaria Ferrer to succeed Müller as Prefect of the CDF.[17][18] Müller chose to retire rather than accept another Curial position.[19][20]

Müller criticised the way Pope Francis dismissed him as head of the CDF, calling it "unacceptable". He said that on the last working day of his five-year term, Pope Francis informed him "within a minute" that he would not be reappointed to another term. "He did not give a reason. Just as he gave no reason for dismissing three highly competent members of the CDF a few months earlier."[21] Later that month a report commissioned by the Diocese of Regensburg sharply criticized Müller's handling while bishop there of cases of sexual abuse by priests.[22][23]

In the context of Pope Francis' encyclical Amoris laetitia and its allowance of divorced Catholics receiving Communion, Müller criticized Francis' papacy, and Latin American theology in general, for lacking theological rigour.[24]

On 22 February 2014, Pope Francis made him Cardinal-Deacon of Sant'Agnese in Agone.[25]

Before the public criticism of his handling while bishop of cases of sexual abuse by priests, Müller was mentioned as papabile, that is, a possible candidate for the papacy.[26][27][28]

In February 2019, Müller issued a "Manifesto of Faith" to conservative Catholic media outlets. It is viewed as an attack on Pope Francis, who removed Mueller from his role in a senior Vatican post. For the most part the manifesto represents a re-stating of the Church teachings, such as celibacy for priests and the ban on women's ordination. One section appeared to be a repudiation of Pope Francis and his effort to reach out to divorced and remarried Catholics, an effort deplored by more conservative Catholics.[41]

In 2012, Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests criticized Müller's appointment to the CDF because he had reinstated Peter Kramer in parish ministry after Kramer was convicted in 2000 of sexually abusing children. Kramer had completed court-ordered therapy. Müller did not inform those in Kramer's new parish of his past history.[42] Müller had apologized in 2007 for mishandling the case.[43]

In 2016, Fritz Wallner, a former chair of the lay diocesan council in Regensburg, Germany, alleged that Müller as Bishop of Regensburg had "systematically" thwarted the investigation of abuse in the "Regensburger Domspatzen" boys' choir. Georg Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI's brother, led the choir from 1964 to 1994. Müller insisted that neither the church nor its bishops were responsible for abusers. In February 2012, he said that "if a schoolteacher abuses a child, it is not the school nor the Ministry of Education that are to blame." He maintained that only the perpetrator is guilty.[44] In 2016, a commission of 12 members was instituted to address the history of abuse and its cover-up in the boys' choir, a move critics viewed as long overdue. Wallner called for the church to purge any person associated with Müller, who had overseen the church's response to the allegations.[45] In July 2017, a comprehensive report commissioned by the Diocese of Regensburg on abuse at the boys choirs said that Müller had "clear responsibility for the strategic, organizational and communicative weaknesses" of the church's response when the abuses were first reported.[22][23]

Müller was included in a suit in France for his handling of the case of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon.[46] Barbarin, but not Müller, was convicted by the court.[47]

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• "Müller Card. Gerhard Ludwig". Holy See Press Office. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
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