Cardinal Gerhard Müller Calls COVID-Related Sacrament Restrictions ‘Grave Sin’, by Edward Pentin

In an interview with the Register, the German cardinal also warned against bishops and priests who ‘offer themselves as courtiers to the rulers of this world and make themselves their propagandists.’

By Edward Pentin Interviews, December 2, 2021

Edward Pentin Edward Pentin began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for EWTN’s National Catholic Register. .

Some politicians, mainstream media and Big Tech have “ruthlessly exploited” COVID-19 to promote “totalitarian thinking” that has even led to division within families, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has observed.

In a Dec. 1 email interview with the Register, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also said that the response of some bishops and priests to close churches or deny the sacraments is a “grave sin” that goes against their “God-given authority.”

A small minority of dioceses in Germany have been restricting Masses to the vaccinated or those recently recovered from the virus. Such a decision, as well as closure of some churches, was “shocking proof of how far the secularization and de-Christianization of thought has already reached the shepherds of Christ’s flock,” the German cardinal said. …