‘Jesus Would Go to Prison:’ Catholic Cardinal Addresses Hostility against Biblical Marriage

A Roman Catholic cardinal is claiming that Christ would be imprisoned in today’s Western society for His position on sex, marriage, and gender. Appearing on GB News America on Sunday, German Cardinal and former head of the Vatican’s doctrine office Gerhard Müller addressed the threat that transgender ideology poses to the family. “Christ does not impose any conditions but rather gives all people — rich and poor, righteous and sinners — the chance of conversion and of a new beginning,” Müller said. “But Jesus also contradicts ideological ways [that] want to relativize or even destroy marriage of man and woman and the family of the parents with their own children.”

Referring to Jesus’s words in the Gospel of Matthew, the cardinal said, “He answered the Pharisees who wanted to trap Him, ‘Have you not read that God created man in the beginning, male and female?’” He added, “I believe that today, Jesus would not be condemned only because He is the Messiah, but He would in Canada or in the United States or in European countries go to prison because He spoke out the truth about marriage between a man and a woman.”

Müller’s comments were in response to a question from English Catholic parliamentarian Jacob Rees-Mogg on Pope Francis’s governance of the Catholic Church, particularly the pope’s recent approval of baptizing those who have undergone gender transition surgeries and allowing them to serve as godparents. At the time, Müller went to great lengths to explain that baptizing those who have undergone gender transition procedures requires them to have repented of their sin and committed to living virtuously, which would include identifying as their biological sex and, as much as possible, undo the effects of their surgeries. The same would be necessary for an individual to serve as a godparent.

The Vatican also issued a controversial statement on Monday approving blessings for same-sex couples, though still nominally maintaining Catholic moral doctrine on sex and marriage and barring approving same-sex relationships. In October, Müller warned that LGBT activists were actively promoting blessings for same-sex unions. He said that LGBT advocates claimed that “the Church must be open, not to these persons but to the ideology. The ideology is to blame for this.”

The German prelate also addressed on Sunday the pope’s treatment of theologically-conservative clerics like Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, and American Cardinal Raymond Burke. Müller said, “I don’t know more about Bishop Strickland and Cardinal Burke than what is written in the newspapers, but I can personally testify that both are devout Catholics and zealous pastors.” Strickland was forced to retire last month for reasons unspecified by the Vatican, and the pope will no longer be subsidizing Burke’s apartment in Rome, jeopardizing the cardinal’s eligibility for his salary. Müller added, “Cardinal Burke is the best-qualified canonist in the College of the Roman Cardinals.”

Müller was appointed as the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office by the late Pope Benedict XVI, but criticized how Pope Francis dismissed him from his post in 2017, saying it was “unacceptable.” The pope did not inform Müller that he would not be reappointed to the role until the day his term expired. He was later appointed to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s highest court.