Cardinal Muller Says Europe's Politicians Fear Muslims

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller claimed in an interview that European politicians, including those in his native Germany, “live in fear" of Muslims, while he warned that the future of Christianity on the continent is bleak.

Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to Vatican journalist Diane Montagna and gave an assessment of the Church under Pope Leo XIV and threats posed by Islam and secular ideologies. 
 

Müller told Montagna that Muslims in Europe appear confident in pushing Islam, while Christians appear hesitant to bear public witness to their faith out of fear. "Muslims dominate public life, in part because politicians live in fear of them," Müller said in reference to Germany.  Germany "already is, in many ways" a Muslim country, he said.
 

The numbers are stark: in his native Mainz, a city where 70 per cent were Catholic some 50 years ago,  the number has fallen to 27 per cent. Immigration by Muslims, especially under former chancellor Angela Merkel, and the tendency for Germans to eschew religious affiliation, are factors. 
 

The cardinal said that Muslims are shaping the culture while Catholics are reluctant to display their faith even with Eucharistic processions. The imbalance, he fears, poses the possibility that Europe may follow the same road as North Africa, which was once a stronghold of the Catholic faith that has become almost totally Islamic since the seventh century.
 

Muller sees a wider collapse of faith throughout Europe, pointing to surging fascism, communism, nationalism, and wokeism as destructive forces undermining Christian faith that leave the continent vulnerable to decay. As for wokeism, he described it as a futtherance Marxism hostile to family, identity and religion. He accused woke activists of  "instrumentalising" Islam to undermine what was once Christendom. 
 

"In England, for example, wokeism in its initial phase uses Islamism as a tool to weaken Christian culture and tradition," Muller said. "Currently, in tragic cases – such as when a girl is violated by several Muslim men – the girl is more likely to go to jail than the perpetrators. I hope that we will see meaningful change in England with the next elections."
 

As for the new American pope, Müller was full of praise, saying that Leo has restored “a more Christ-centered proclamation of the Gospel” and clearer focus on evangelisation. In an apparent reference to Pope Francis, he said Leo’s approach is in contrast to the former’s preoccupation with migration and other secondary issues. He stressed that the Church should assist the poor, Muller said the first priority of the Church is to preach the Gospel and to bring people to Christ. 

Cardinal Muller also condemned the controversial LGBTQ Jubilee pilgrimage to the Vatican where participants entered St. Peter's Basilic and the Church of the Gesu, describing it as a desecration and distortion of Catholic teaching. He accused the organizer, among whom were a bishop and Jesuit Fr. James Martin, and for exploiting religious symbols for secular ends. In the interview, he also referred to American political organizer Charlie Kirk, an Evangelical Christian, founder of Turning Point USA and supporter of President Donald Trump. Muller called him a "martyr for Jesus Christ" and a "victim of an atheistic ideology, whose followers erupted in  satanic celebration over the heinous murder of an exemplary husband and family man. The devil always takes possession of those who hate life and truth." The cardinal also recognized Kirk for having called on Protestant Christians to be more open to the role of the Virgin Mary in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.