VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) –– The former prefect of the Vatican’s highest doctrine office, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, condemned U.S. President Joe Biden’s support for abortion, saying it is “infanticide” and that those promoting “infanticide” should be “excommunicated.”
“The word ‘abortion’ is too much a soft word. The reality is killing, murder of a living person,” said Gerhard Cardinal Müller. “There’s no right to kill another person. It’s absolutely against the Fifth Commandment.”
The cardinal made his comments condemning President Joe Biden during an extensive interview with LifeSiteNews in Rome. {Parts I and II can be found here and here.} His forthright critique of Biden’s very public and consistent pro-abortion stance came shortly after the president used his 2024 State of the Union Address to promise to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.”
Cardinal Müller likened the killing of the unborn and the elderly to the “Nazi” times, saying that “it’s absolutely unacceptable that you can say you are a Catholic and promote and justify killing of human persons, human beings [from] the beginning in the mother’s womb, until the last respiration [with] euthanasia… Killing of ill people, like in the Nazi times, is euthanasia.”
Biden is very public about his self-professed Catholic faith, but Cardinal Müller suggested that while Biden is “nominally a Catholic, in reality he is a Nihilist. It’s cynicism and absolute cynicism.”
The prelate contrasted Biden with Catholics and other Christians throughout America who “know and accept as everybody also, the nonbelievers, with their own mere reason, they can understand that it’s not possible that one human being has a right to kill another one.”
READ: EXCLUSIVE: Cardinal Müller slams synodal ‘ideology’ trying to turn the Church into an ‘NGO’
Drawing on the example of St. Ambrose of Milan and his excommunication of the Emperor Theodosius, Cardinal Müller commented how “in other times people like this would be excommunicated. In former times the Popes and the bishops had no fear to excommunicate, like St. Ambrose of Milan.”
He stood up and also we should stand up and without looking to the consequences for us we have to stand up and to open our mouth for the innocent people and to protect their life. St. John the Baptist said to Herod, “It is not allowed for you to take the wife of your brother to be your own wife.” It is not allowed to you to kill persons or to justify [this], to open the legislation as if it was legal or legitimate. To kill the people is not a form of regulation of birth and so on, but it is absolutely immoral to kill other people.
And today all the Western world, Western leaders, the great majority of Western leaders also in Germany and France, as they made the right to kill their people, they lost their credibility. They cannot, on the one hand, protest against the killing of innocent people in Ukraine, while on the other hand allow the killing of their own children.
Reiterating the truth that God is “creator of every body and we humans are only the administrator of the good will of God,” Cardinal Müller observed that humanity was called to care for fellow men, since “we cannot distinguish or separate the love of God for us and our love for God, from the love of us to our neighbor and the love of our neighbor to us.”
Promoters of infanticide are excommunicated
Following Biden’ State of the Union address, LifeSite has launched a public action call for the U.S. bishops to excommunicate the pro-abortion president. Questioned directly by this reporter about the endeavor, Cardinal Müller stated that “the first step must be that we [must] have the unanimous U.S. bishops conference, probably together with other Christian religious, other religious leaders, [give] an absolute, clear, strong statement that this [abortion] is against all the standards and principles of humanity.”
Such a statement would be along these lines: “That they [would say] absolutely clearly that everybody in public responsibility who, as a Catholic, is promoting this infanticide, that they are excommunicated.”
READ: EXCLUSIVE: Cardinal Müller calls Pope Francis’ homosexual ‘blessings’ an attack on marriage
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong, because it kills an innocent human being, thus violating the Church’s prohibition on murder. (CCC 2270-2272.) The CDF’s 2004 memo states that a politician “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” manifests “formal cooperation” with grave sin, and must be “denied” the Eucharist. Additionally, Canon 915 of the Catholic Code of Canon Law says that those who “obstinately” persevere “in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
The Code of Canon Law 915 also explicitly forbids those in mortal sin from receiving Communion: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Expanding on the theme of a pro-abortion politician, Cardinal Müller further noted that even if there is no formal process of excommunication, a person is not to be excused from the gravity of his actions in supporting abortion.
So [even] in the case if one is not formally excommunicated, if these people receive Holy Communion, they don’t receive the Holy Communion only with their mouth, [as] they don’t receive the grace. They receive it, according to the words of Saint Paul, for their own condemnation, and Biden and all these people, they must know that in the ultimate judgment, when they appear after their death before the tribunal of God, that this is a mortal sin, what they are doing. Even if they are not personally doing it, but they are cooperators, direct cooperators of the murders of innocent people.
Biden says that he has had been in the Catholic schools, but I want to ask what did he learn there? For what is this religion?
It’s not only a certain feeling of belonging to, or a little sentimentality, or a little spirituality of inner good feeling, to read some poems or some books, and so you are feeling well, looking at nature and the apples… all nice. It’s not religion. Religion is a clear confession of all your person, of all your being, to give yourself as a sacrifice to God and for the others. That is our Christian religion.
Pro-abortion mindset is killing humanity
In addition to his comments on the intrinsically evil nature of abortion, Cardinal Müller further noted the “narrow-minded ideas” of the pro-abortion movement that is resulting in the destruction of humanity.
The pro-abortion mindset, he said, holds that “only my happiness is important, that it is an ultimate criteria of definition of happiness and pleasure, of my sense of my life.”
In contrast, Cardinal Müller noted that “we as individual humans, we have to understand ourselves in the context of our family, of our group of our friends, of our classmates, of our culture, of our nation, and of mankind.”
Pointing to the inter-generational nature of teaching the Catholic Faith, the German cardinal highlighted that the pro-abortion mindset of individual happiness is fundamentally against religion.
In closing, Cardinal Müller praised and supported the recently launched nine-month novena from Cardinal Raymond Burke, which is directed towards Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas and the unborn.
READ: Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’
Cardinal Müller opined that such an endeavor would serve to also strengthen a Catholic “worldwide conscience and movement,” since the opponents of the Church “have all the power of the media” and “behind them are the international organizations,” like Big Tech and the financial world.
The full transcript of Part III of LifeSite’s interview with Cardinal Müller is found below
Michael Haynes: Your Eminence, we mentioned Fiducia Supplicans, the Synodal Way, and the Synod on Synodality. I wanted to move briefly to America in terms of the discussion as, somewhat similar to the controversy caused by Fiducia supplicans, I think there’s a great pain felt, especially by American Catholics, with U.S. President Joe Biden, who’s nominally a Catholic but is very public in his promotion of abortion. He used his recent State of the Union address to once again very publicly call for abortion. It seems that there’s a silence amongst many bishops, some priests, also on these clear teachings that should be promoted, especially when there is such promotion of abortion. Why do you think there is such a silence on these issues?
Cardinal Gerhard Müller: The word “abortion” is too much a soft word. The reality is killing, murder of a living person. There’s no right to kill another person. It’s absolutely against the fifth commandment. The president, a politician, is calling himself Catholic – or [like] Putin, is calling himself an Orthodox Christian, [as he] spoke in the dialogue and the interview with Tucker Carlson, he spoke about the baptism of Russia as a point of reference for justifying what he’s doing now, killing innocent persons in Ukraine – for me it’s the same.
It’s absolutely unacceptable that you can say you are a Catholic and promote and justify killing of human persons, human beings [from] the beginning in the mother’s womb, until the last respiration [with] euthanasia…Killing of ill people, like in the Nazi times, is euthanasia.
He [Biden] could be nominally a Catholic but in reality he is a Nihilist. It’s cynicism and absolute cynicism.
And the representatives of the Catholic Church and all Catholics, and in America also [there are] a lot of Protestant Christians of other denominations, they are obedient to the Word of God and they know and accept as everybody also, the nonbelievers, with their own mere reasons, they can understand that it’s not possible that one human being has a right to kill another one. There would be no basis for any morals, [it would be] absolutely the domination of brutality. Like Hitler I [would] have the power, I can do whatever I want, I can kill everybody – it’s the same mentality and behavior.
This is a pagan understanding and we must reject openly against this absolutely murderous ideology. And not to make compromises saying “yes, he is a president and we cannot do anything against him.” In other times people like this would be excommunicated. In former times the Popes and the bishops had no fear to excommunicate, like St. Ambrose of Milan. He excommunicated the good Catholic Emperor Theodosius because he killed in Thessalonica, in certain circumstances in the theater, 7000 people, innocent people. He [Ambrose] denied that he [Theodosius] could receive Holy Communion.
On one side the Emperor has also military power today with a public meaning. On the other hand [there is] only a single person, the bishop without weapons, but only with a weapon of the truth and the Word of God.
He stood up and also we should stand up and without looking to the consequences for us we have to stand up and to open our mouth for the innocent people and to protect their life. St. John the Baptist said to Herod, “It is not allowed for you to take the wife of your brother to be your own wife. It is not allowed to you to kill persons or to justify [this], to open the legislation as if it was legal or legitimate. To kill the people is not a form of regulation of birth and so on, but it is absolutely immoral to kill other people.”
And today all the Western world, Western leaders, the great majority of Western leaders also in Germany and France, as they made the right to kill their people, they lost their credibility. They cannot, on the one hand, protest against the killing of innocent people in Ukraine, while on the other hand allow the killing of their own children.
There is no right of the mother to kill her own child, but the mission of a woman and a mother is to protect. Where is the child? It is not in the dog’s house. It is in your womb, in your body. It came in through the love of your husband, in the ideal case. But also in the other cases – the generation of the child outside of marriage – but the objective is given a reality by God. God is a creator of every body and we humans are only the administrator of the good will of God. We have to take care of the children, of the young people, of the elderly people because we cannot distinguish or separate the love of God for us and our love for God, from the love of us to our neighbor and the love of our neighbor to us.
Haynes: Your Eminence, you mentioned how previously such political leaders or public figures would have been excommunicated. I know now there is a petition going around amongst U.S. Catholics for the U.S. bishops to do that with regards to Joe Biden, to move to excommunicate him. Do you think that that is something which would be a good thing for the bishops to do?
Cdl. Müller: The first step must be that we [must] have the unanimous U.S. bishops conference, probably together with other Christian religious, other religious leaders, [give] an absolute, clear, strong statement that this is against all the standards and principles of humanity. That they [would say] absolutely clearly that everybody in public responsibility as a Catholic, who is promoting this infanticide, that they are excommunicated.
So [even] in the case if one is not formally excommunicated, if these people receive Holy Communion, they don’t receive the Holy Communion only with their mouth, [as] they don’t receive the grace. They receive it, according to the words of Saint Paul, for their own condemnation, and Biden and all these people, they must know that in the ultimate judgment, when they appear after their death before the tribunal of God, that this is a mortal sin, what they are doing. Even if they are not personally doing it, but they are cooperators, direct cooperators of the murders of innocent people.
And also there is an absolute great stupidity also under political dimensions. We in Europe, all politicians are saying we don’t have enough people for work, and now they are killing their whole future. The creation is shaped so far as a following of generations is belonging to the human constitution. People don’t drop from the air or come out from the earth. They come from the former generation, from the parents, grandparents, back to the beginning of the mankind, until to the last generation which we will see with our own eyes when Jesus is coming back.
They [pro-abortion individuals] have some narrow-minded ideas, [that] only my happiness is important, that it is an ultimate criteria of definition of happiness and pleasure, of my sense of my life. [They say] “surely we are individuals, that is clear, and the person is the ultimate reason of the creation, of the self-communication of God with us.”
But we as individual humans, we have to understand ourselves in the context of our family, of our group of our friends, of our classmates, of our culture, of our nation, and of mankind. Also we are belonging – as our immediate relation to God is not isolated – we are members of the body of the Church and nobody received their faith only by reading the Bible, but beginning with his parents was he was introduced, socialized, and personalized during the different phases of life development.
We didn’t come into the world as adults, but as small kids, depending on the parents of our life growing up, and the love of our parents, of our teachers, and so on, so past us. That is reality, the deepest solidarity between all human beings. And that is forgotten.
Biden says that he has had been in the Catholic schools, but I want to ask what did he learn there? For what is this religion? It’s not only a certain feeling of belonging to, or a little sentimentality, or a little spirituality of inner good feeling, to read some poems or some books, and so you are feeling well, looking at nature and the apples and the screens, all nice. It’s not religion. Religion is a clear confession of all your person, of all your being, to give yourself as a sacrifice to God and for the others. That is our Christian religion.
Haynes: It seems quite fitting then, especially now given the recent developments in France enshrining abortion into the constitution, it seems very fitting with Cardinal Burke’s Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, but patroness of the unborn as well. As a final, very brief question, would you have any comments or thoughts to add regarding that Novena of Cardinal Burke’s, the nine-month Novena, starting just on March the 12th?
Cdl. Müller: No, that seems a very good idea and realization. It’s a Novena to ask for the Holy Spirit, for the Christian Enlightenment and illumination of our minds and to change our thoughts and behavior, and to establish a worldwide conscience and movement because the others are living in an international network.
They have all the power of the media, behind them are the international organizations of Big Mac and Big Tech, the financial world, these businessmen, nothing against businessmen, but only with this experience one cannot rule the world. One cannot give the answer to the basic existential questions of our human existence. We need philosophers and theologians who give the ultimate orientation for mankind.
At least, and at the end, God is the only true and infallible teacher for everybody.
Haynes: Eminence, thank you once again for your time and all your insights. Would you just close us off with your blessing?
Cdl. Müller: We are oriented in Jesus Christ – the only Way, the Church, the Synodal path with Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life – and we ask for His blessing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.