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<h1>Vatican’s former doctrine head: ‘Global players’ are using pandemic to ‘suppress’ Catholic Church</h1>
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<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vaticans-former-doctrine-head-global-players-are-using-pandemic-to-suppress-catholic-church" target="_blank">https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vaticans-former-doctrine-head-global-players-are-using-pandemic-to-suppress-catholic-church</a> <br></div><div><br></div><div>The former prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith joined with exiled archbishop
Carlo Maria Viganò to denounce world governments' treatment of the
coronavirus pandemic.</div>
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<span>Fri May 22, 2020 - 9:09 pm EST</span>
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<img alt="Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" src="https://assets.lifesitenews.com/images/made/images/remote/https_www.lifesitenews.com/images/local/Cardinal_Gerhard_Müller_810_500_75_s_c1.jpg" style="max-height:100%;margin-right:0px" width="180" height="111">
Cardinal Gerhard Müller. <span>Diane Montagna / LifeSiteNews</span>
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<span>By Martin Bürger</span><br>
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<p>ROME, May 22, 2020 (<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/" target="_blank">LifeSiteNews</a>)
— German cardinal Gerhard Müller has warned against “global players who
are against the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church is
pro-life, pro-family, and for religious freedom.”</p>
<p>Talking to EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmBrdWekNn8" target="_blank">Thursday</a>,
the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
said certain powers “want to instrumentalize this situation” of the
coronavirus pandemic “to suppress the Catholic Church.”</b></span></p>
<p>“The security for your life is not the only value,” he said. “We have
also spiritual values. We cannot isolate totally all the population. We
have other illnesses and other dangers in our life, and we cannot
absolutely remain in our home.”</p>
<p>“We cannot restrict the human existence, also in a materialistic
interpretation, as if we are able to construct a paradise on Earth,”
Müller cautioned.</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">“The state as such cannot say, ‘We forbid worshiping,’” he said. “We
have the fundamental religious rights, human rights, and the state must
respect these rights of everybody.”</span></p>
<p>The former bishop of Regensburg in Germany pointed out <u><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>the<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">
contradiction</span> between, on the one hand, saying that <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">churches</span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">need to be
closed</span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">but, on the other</span> hand, grocery stores being allowed to remain
open for business.</b></span></u></p>
<p>He asked, “Why is the danger in the church bigger than in the supermarket?”</p>
<p>Beyond prohibiting public Masses, <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><u><b>“nobody has the right to forbid the
priests, the shepherds, to visit the people who are dying or very ill.”
As Müller explained, faithful Catholics have the right to “pastoral
care in these cases.”</b></u></span></p>
<p>Müller talked to Arroyo about the <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/four-cardinals-join-global-appeal-decrying-crackdown-on-basic-freedoms-over-coronavirus" target="_blank">appeal</a>
“for the Church and the world,” which Müller had signed, together with
two other cardinals and many other Catholics, in early May.</p>
<p style="background-color:rgb(196,1,35);color:white"><i><b></b></i></p>
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</div></form></div></div></div></div></div><p>The text, which had been drafted by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, had come under severe criticism, <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-mueller-defends-global-appeal-decrying-loss-of-basic-freedoms-over-coronavirus" target="_blank">especially in Germany</a>, for allegedly peddling conspiracy theories regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it by public authorities.</p>
<p>The president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing
of Limburg, had said his organization “does in principle not comment on
appeals by individual bishops outside Germany.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, he commented that “the assessment of the coronavirus
pandemic by the German Bishops’ Conference is fundamentally different
from the appeal published yesterday.”</p>
<p>Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer, who succeeded Müller as bishop of
Regensburg, said only that he was “adopting as his own” the statement by
Bätzing.</p>
<p>Bishop Gebhard Fürst tweeted, “As bishop of the [Diocese of
Rottenburg-Stuttgart] I strongly dissociate myself from the dangerous
theories of the group around Archbishop Viganò. Whoever reinterprets the
efforts of politics to protect human life from the [coronavirus] into a
dubious world conspiracy is playing with fire!”</p>
<p>Cardinal Müller explained that Viganò had asked him to sign the
letter during a phone conversation. “I said I will support him to
overcome the isolation, all the tensions between the Vatican and him,”
he pointed out.</p>
<p>The bishops who signed the Viganò appeal, Müller continued, cannot
say anything about the medical issues of COVID-19, “but <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><u><b>we have to speak
against the <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">instrumentalization</span> of this virus, of this big world
crisis, global crisis, by some dictatorial states or by other <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">
ideological groups</span> which want<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> to take the opportunity to suppress </span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">the
Church</span> and <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">make a breakdown of</span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"> the sacramental life of the Church.”</span></b></u></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">The main task after this breakdown, according to Müller, will be
evangelization and “to give people the hope that also in cases of our
diseases and of our death, of our short life and all the accidents that
are in this world, we have a wider horizon.”</span></p>
<p>Asked about <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><u><b>the main mission of the Church</b></u>, </span>Müller responded, <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>“We are
cooperating with secular institutions for social justice and peace and
ecology</b></span>,<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b> but our main mission<u> is to preach the kingdom of God.”</u></b></span></p>
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