Müller: "Stop the German Synodal Path. There is no place for rainbow flags in the Church"

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and former Bishop of Regensburg, has called for Germany's Synodal Path to be stopped. He spoke in an English-language interview with Jan Bentz for the Gibbons Institute's "Dispatches" series (Catholic University of America), released on 21 October and reported today by Advaticanum and El Debate.

"There doesn't exist synodality. It's only a fiction developed in the last times," the cardinal said. "There is a Church, the Catholic Church instituted by Jesus Christ… And there are synods, there are councils. But the Church, as the Church, is not a permanent synod." The normal life of the Church, he said, "is in preaching of the Gospel", in Christian life in family and work, in the sacraments and the liturgy.

According to Müller, at the Synodal Path sessions "there was no spoken about God, the revelation about Jesus Christ, the only Savior", only "this modern, modern ideology of wokism." The documents, he said, "have no sense or there's no value for the magisterium" and should be stopped. Pointing to saints, martyrs and Doctors of the Church rather than writers such as Judith Butler, he concluded: "And there is no place for rainbow flags in the Church."

On Leo XIV

On the new pontificate, Müller said: "The Pope is not the successor of the Pope before, but he's a successor of St. Peter. So chronologically, successor of the Pope before him, but this has no theological importance." The Pope's task, he added, is to confirm his brothers in faith in Christ, "the only mediator." On the previous pontificate's documents he recalled: "Pope Francis said all the time, 'I will not change. I cannot change the doctrine, the dogma of the Church.'"

Context

The German Synodal Path ended with its final assembly in Stuttgart in February 2026, which approved statutes for a permanent Synodal Conference of bishops and lay people. On 31 March, German Bishops' Conference president Bishop Heiner Wilmer submitted them in Rome, requesting recognitio. Approval has not yet come, and the first session, planned for 6–7 November in Stuttgart, has been postponed. In late September Wilmer said he hoped for an answer by year's end.

Sources: Gibbons Institute, "Dispatch 02 · Gerhard Cardinal Müller" (21/10/2026); Advaticanum (29/10/2026); El Debate (29/10/2026); German Bishops' Conference (31/03/2026); katholisch.de.

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