Cardinal Calls On Next Pope To Stand Up to 'Gay Lobby'
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller has called on the next pope to stand up to the "gay lobby" as the race to choose the next leader of the Catholic church continues.
Speaking to local media, Müller, a German cardinal who served as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 to 2017, said homosexuality was "contrary to the doctrine of the Church" and urged the next pope to not give into "pressure" from external sources and be "strong on doctrine."
Why It Matters
The late pope was widely considered to be an inclusive one, sometimes to the dismay of the more traditionalist within the Catholic Church. Tensions between liberal and conservative wings, between pro- and anti-Francis camps, are sure to arise during the opaque proceedings of the conclave that will elect the next pope.
Cardinals attend a mass on the fifth of nine days of mourning for late Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 30, 2025.
Cardinals attend a mass on the fifth of nine days of mourning for late Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 30, 2025.
AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
What To Know
Speaking to Italian newspaper La Stampa on April 28, Müller said the next pope should have "a solid theological and doctrinal formation," which is "neither authoritarian nor weak."
"If Jesus says that marriage is between a man and a woman and is indissoluble, no pope can change this doctrine," he added. "The homosexual lobbies want to equate unions between people of the same sex to marriage, but this totally contradicts the doctrine of the Bible. We can discuss concrete, individual pastoral care for individuals, to guide them to Christian life, but we cannot accept gender ideology, which is contrary to the doctrine of the Church."
Pope Francis kept the Vatican's position that homosexual acts were sinful, however the late pope also took a more inclusive stance on LGBTQ+ rights. In 2023, he allowed the blessing of same-sex couples and said being homosexual was "not a crime." He also said transgender people can be baptized and serve as godparents.
Müller previously criticized the late pope for his more liberal views.
What People Are Saying
Müller told La Stampa: "We are not representatives of ideological factions or some lobby, we must not give in to external and media pressure, we belong to the whole Church."
President Donald Trump recently weighed in on the election, telling reporters on April 29: "I'd like to be pope. That would be my number one choice. No, I don't know, I have no preference...I must say we have a cardinal [Timothy Dolan, who has been the archbishop of New York since 2009] that happens to be out of a place called New York who's very good."
What Happens Next
The Vatican announced Tuesday that cardinals from around the world would meet for the conclave inside the Sistine Chapel on May 7 to elect the next pope.
They will vote in rounds until one receives a two-thirds majority. There is no set time for how long a conclave may last, but the last two concluded within two days.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
From marginal religious groups to mainstream Christians: Why some see a shift in Supreme Court cases
The court's first case involving a Rastafarian highlights the role smaller religious groups have played in the court's history, even as more cases come from mainstream Christian groups. WASHINGTON – There have been no shortage of religious groups seeking help from the Supreme Court in recent years, including three cases last term that involved the Catholic Church. But the religion at the center of a case set for after the summer is not nearly as well represented in the population - or in the courtroom. In fact, it appears to be the first time the Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a Rastafarian. Damon Landor said his religious rights were violated when his dreadlocks were forcibly shaved by Louisiana prison guards. More: Supreme Court to decide if prison officials can be sued over inmates' religious rights Handcuffed to a chair while his dreadlocks were shaved off Landor had shown prison officials a copy of a court ruling that dreadlocks grown for religious reasons should be accommodated. But an intake guard threw the ruling in the trash and Landor was handcuffed to a chair while his knee-length locks were shaved off. The justices will decide whether Landor can sue the guards for compensation under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Landor – whose appeal was backed by more than 30 religious groups and the Justice Department − argues that monetary damages are often the only way to hold prison officials accountable when religious rights are violated. Legal experts on religion cases expect the court will side with the Rastafarian. That would be consistent not just with the high success rate of appeals the court agrees to hear from religious people, but also with the role smaller religious groups have played in the court's history. Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists Most of the religious cases Richard Garnett teaches in his classes at the University of Notre Dame Law School involve smaller religious communities, including Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists. 'The story of religious freedom in America has developed through cases involving members of minority religions,' Garnett said. Other court watchers, however, say that was more true in the past than it is now. 'That's kind of a legacy view,' said Carl Esbeck, an expert on religious liberty at the University of Missouri School of Law. In fact, a 2022 study found that; since 2005, the winning religion in most Supreme Court religious cases was a mainstream Christian organization. In the past, by contrast, pro-religion outcomes more frequently favored minority or marginal religious organizations, according to the analysis by Lee Epstein at Washington University in St. Louis and Eric Posner of the University of Chicago Law School. 'The religion clauses of the First Amendment were once understood to provide modest but meaningful protection for non-mainstream religions from discrimination by governments that favored mainstream Christian organizations, practices, or values,' they wrote. Similarly, traditionalist Christians – such as orthodox Catholics and Baptists – had been significantly less successful than other religious groups in getting accommodations from lower federal courts from 1986 to 1995, according to a study by Michael Heise of Cornell Law School and Gregory Sisk of the University of St. Thomas School of Law. But from 2006 to 2015, their disadvantage 'appeared to fade into statistical insignificance,' they wrote in 2022. The Supreme Court, they said, 'appears to be setting the stage for a more equitable and expansive protection of religious liberty.' Colorado and the gay wedding cake debate Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, agrees that the court has taken an expansive view of religious liberty protections. But he says it hasn't always been equitable. In 2018, the court said Colorado had shown "religious hostility" to a baker who didn't want to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. More: How a Supreme Court case about a gay couple's wedding cake got caught up in Israeli judicial reform But that same month, Mach said, the court upheld President Donald Trump's travel ban 'even in the face of Trump's repeated unambiguous statements condemning Islam and Muslims.' More broadly, he said, the court's 'general hostility to the separation of church and state' erodes protections for minority groups promised by the First Amendment's prohibition against the government favoring a specific religion or favoring religion in general. 'Built into that structure is necessarily a protection against the imposition by the majority of its favored religious doctrine,' he said. In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at 'Eradicating anti-Christian Bias' and calling on agencies to eliminate the "anti-Christian weaponization of government." The administration cited that order when telling federal employees in a July 28 memo they may discuss and promote their religious beliefs in the workplace. More: Supreme Court blocks Catholic charter school in big setback for religion advocates Ruling for Amish built on to benefit other religions In June, the Supreme Court built upon a 1972 ruling for the Amish as it affirmed the religious rights of parents to remove their elementary school children from class when storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters are being used. When deciding more than 50 years ago that Amish parents did not have to keep their children in school until age 16 as Wisconsin required, the court said those parents had an argument 'that probably few other religious groups or sects could make.' But Justice Samuel Alito left no doubt about the broader significance of Wisconsin v. Yoder in the 6-3 opinion he authored in June that sided with parents from a variety of religious backgrounds − including Roman Catholic but also Muslim, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and other faiths − who objected to the LGBTQ+ storybooks used in Maryland school district. 'Yoder is an important precedent of this Court, and it cannot be breezily dismissed as a special exception granted to one particular religious minority,' Alito wrote. More: Supreme Court sides with Maryland parents who want to avoid LGBTQ+ books in public schools In a 2020 speech to the conservative Federalist Society, Alito had warned that 'religious liberty is in danger of becoming a second-class right.' He listed examples of cases he'd judged about religious minorities, including the rights of Muslim police officers to have beards, of a Jewish prisoner to organize a Torah study group and whether a Native American could keep a bear for religious services. The baker who didn't want to make a cake for a same-sex wedding and Catholic nuns who objected to insurance coverage for contraceptives 'deserve no less protection,' Alito said about more recent cases. More: Supreme Court sides with Catholic Charities in case about tax exemptions and religion `Clear pattern of preference for religious groups' Cornell Law School Professor Nelson Tebbe said more of the claims about religious freedom started to come from mainstream majority Christian groups as political polarization increased and as the gay rights movement picked up speed. 'Suddenly, civil libertarian groups who had been on the side of minority religions…started to realize that civil rights laws could be vulnerable to religious attacks by conservative Christians and they started to get worried,' Tebbe said. As the court has shifted its approach, he said, the justices have both granted exemptions from regulations that burden religion as well as said government must treat religious groups no differently than secular organizations when providing public benefits − such as school vouchers. 'While both of those could be seen as understandable on their own terms, when you put them together, there's a clear pattern of preference for religious groups,' he said. 'It's a pretty dramatic moment in constitutional law in this area.' Garnett, the religious freedom expert at the University of Notre Dame Law School, said the court's decisions are a reflection of the ongoing debate over how much accommodation should be given in a country with diverse religious views. 'So the fact that those cases are coming up isn't because the court sort of shifted to protecting majority groups,' he said. 'It's because events on the ground shifted. And the nature of the controversies that are served up are different.'
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
‘Who speaks for the Jews?' The ADL, some say. Wrong, say others.
In a time of escalating global crises, including Israel's devastating siege of Gaza, which the UN has called Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Phillips argues that disproportionate criticism of Israel reveals latent antisemitism. But this ignores both the extraordinary scale of suffering in Gaza and the billions in US military aid that make this war possible. Holding a US-funded ally to account is not bigotry — it's our moral responsibility. Advertisement Today, perhaps more than ever, we need principled, not punitive, leadership from the ADL. Sandy Light Cambridge Caroline Light Belmont Miriam Cubstead Watertown Caroline Light is a senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in women, gender, and sexuality studies at Harvard University. The views expressed here are her own and do not represent the university. Advertisement 'The Anti-Defamation League really is a bulwark' against hate My compliments to Colette A.M. Phillips for writing 'In defense of the Anti-Defamation League.' She is spot-on: Whatever the targeted group, violence can materialize from lack of education, prejudicial upbringing, or visceral hate, as shown, in the case of Jews, in Pittsburgh (mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, Oct. 27, 2018); Boulder, Colo. (fire attack June 1 of this year on a group marching in solidarity with the hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023); and Marietta, Ga. (the conviction in 1913, and subsequent lynching in 1915, of Leo Frank). The Anti-Defamation League really is a bulwark against people who have hate issues. It tries to raise awareness that there are better ways to bring respect and understanding for all people when there is division in society. Edward Sloan North Andover 'I have never felt represented or protected by the ADL' As a Jewish person who believes that all lives are sacred, including those of Palestinians, I have never felt represented or protected by the Anti-Defamation League. While in principle the ADL allows that not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, the organization has not afforded the same benefit of the doubt to pro-Palestinian protesters as it has done, for example, to Elon Musk for giving what appeared to be Colette A.M. Phillips argues that, since Israel's actions in Gaza have generated more protest than other atrocities around the globe, this protest must be a 'fig leaf' for antisemitism. This argument ignores both the scale of devastation — Gaza has been cited as Advertisement But for me, the reason to protest goes deeper. Growing up Jewish, I was told not only that Israel is the sacred ancestral home of our people but also that we have a special responsibility to ensure that what happened to us in the Holocaust does not happen to any people. When I see mass atrocities being committed by the country that is said to be my home, how can I remain silent? Ben Allen Boston 'The ADL is now a partisan organization' I am a Jewish American and found Colette A.M. Phillips's op-ed very disturbing. Despite claiming that 'criticizing a government is fair game,' she then says much political criticism of Israel is not fair game. Instead, she establishes an impossible test for permissible criticism: that the speaker must prove their criticism is not 'selective.' People have countless reasons for caring about some issues more than others. It has never been right to censor speech for its selectivity nor the imputed motives behind selectivity. Yet Phillips wants us to believe that in the case of Israel, we should reduce all special concern to hidden antisemitism. This is trying to win an argument without making it. Phillips falls back on the exhausted argument that 'we have learned to listen' to the oppressed. They decide what counts as bigoted. Even if true in principle, Advertisement Alex Gourevitch Cambridge The writer is an associate professor of political science at Brown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the university. 'All of us are capable of monstrous acts' I was raised with awareness of antisemitism — my grandparents fled the anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine, and many family friends were German, Polish, or Austrian survivors of the Holocaust. In 1980, my junior high school in Arlington was one of the first cohorts to use the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum. We studied the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the war in Cambodia. It was painful to hear specifics of the slaughter of Jews and of the passivity of bystanders who knew but did not act in opposition. However, in studying the Holocaust in the context of these other atrocities, it was always clear that this particular history was part of a much larger pattern of cruelty and resistance. As Jews, our suffering was not something that made us 'special'; rather, it was a dramatic example of recurring human barbarism. The ADL's defense of fascist acts is a bitter irony. Those who claim Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza are willfully ignoring mass starvation and heartless slaughter. It feels excruciating, but we must be honest that Americans, Israelis, Jews, indeed all of us are capable of monstrous acts, and we must put aside our pride and act with determination to stop the horror. Julia Halperin Jamaica Plain
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Up to a million young Catholics expected for grand Pope Leo vigil
Up to a million young Catholic believers are expected Saturday for a night-time vigil led by Pope Leo XIV, the culmination of a week-long pilgrimage, a key event in the Jubilee holy year. The "Jubilee of Youth" -- when the Vatican invites Catholics aged 18 to 35 to the seat of the global Church's power -- has seen thousands of young pilgrims from around the world flood Rome this week. It is taking place just under three months since 69-year-old Leo -- the first American pope -- took over the papacy. Large groups of pilgrims have packed the streets of Rome all week, waving the flags of their countries or cities and chanting religious songs. Excitement has mounted over the course of the week for the new pope's final appearance to the youths on Saturday. "I feel mainly curiosity, as we don't know him very well yet," Parisian student Alice Berry, 21, told AFP. "What does he have to say to us? What is his message for young people?" - Uncertainty, anxiety - Various events have been planned for them by the Church throughout the city, including at Circus Maximus, where on Friday approximately 1,000 priests were on hand to take confession. Some 200 white gazebos lined the hippodrome where chariot races were once held in Ancient Rome, where youth lined up to speak to priests in 10 different languages. Spanish was one of the main languages heard on the streets of the Italian capital. The pilgrimage is taking place as economic uncertainty hits young people across the world and as climate change anxiety rises among the under-30s. Many young pilgrims said they wanted to hear the Vatican's position on climate change, wars and economic inequalities. Samarei Semos, 29, said she had travelled three days from her native Belize to get to Rome. "We are still trying to understand his leadership," she said of the new pope, adding she hoped he would have a strong say about "third world countries". The pilgrimage also comes amid global alarm over starvation in Israel-blockaded Gaza, and more than three years into Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. - Night vigil - The Vatican has praised Catholic youths who travelled to Rome from war-scarred countries like Ukraine or Syria, with Pope Leo repeatedly calling for the youths to "pray for peace". The voices of the amassed young people "will be heard to the end of the earth," Pope Leo told them earlier this week. The Vatican has said that more than 146 countries are represented. The mass that is the climax of the event will take place in Rome's Tor Vergata area in a vast open-air space with a newly built stage for the pope. It is the same area used 25 years ago for the last youth jubilee under Pope John Paul II. More than 4,300 volunteers will be working the event to welcome the young pilgrims, along with over 1,000 police, according to organisers. In an unprecedented move, Leo hosted a mass Tuesday for Catholic social media influencers, signalling the Vatican's openness to supporting the Internet-savvy youth. Rome authorities have tightened security in the city -- which has seen an unprecedented number of people, with both tourists and pilgrims inundated the city. oc/jj
