Cardinal Müller says next pope must stand up to ‘gay lobby’
The Catholic Herald• April 30, 2025
Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said the Roman Catholic Church needs to stand up to the “gay lobby” as part of taking a stronger position “on doctrine” that resists ideologically driven pressures.
The comments from the German cardinal, who is viewed as a influential traditionalist and was one of the strongest critics of Pope Francis during his papacy, came shortly before it was announced that the conclave to elect the next pope will occur on 7 May, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Cardinal Müller told Italian media La Stampa in a 28 April article that the next pope needs to be “strong on doctrine” and “determined to stand up to ideological lobbies, including the gay lobby”.
He said the next pontiff should also have “a solid theological and doctrinal formation”, and called for a return to “orthodoxy, doctrine founded on Scripture and apostolic tradition, and against heresy”.
Focusing on the issue of marriage and the “gay lobby”, he pointed to the words of Jesus as providing clarity on this controversial and polarised issue that increasingly roils the Church.
“Doctrine is not the property of the pope, the bishops or the faithful,” the German cardinal said. “It must conform to the word of Jesus, no one can modify it.
“If Jesus says that marriage is between a man and a woman, no one can change this doctrine. The homosexual lobby wants to equate marriage with unions between people of the same sex, but this totally contradicts the doctrine of the Bible.”
The late pope’s 2023 decision to allow the blessing of same-sex couples sparked enormous controversy, with bishops in Africa and Asia refusing to permit the blessings. It was one of a number of decisions by Pope Francis with which Müller vehemently disagreed and as a result spoke out on.
Despite their apparent differences, though, Pope Francis himself also criticised the issue of homosexuality when it came to its influence in the Church.
Perhaps one of the least covered but most significant of Pope Francis’s controversies was his use of a crude slang term in referring to homosexuals during a session with Italian bishops in May 2024.
Francis was in the Vatican’s synod hall on 20 May to address the spring plenary assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference (known by the acronym CEI), with roughly 230 bishops present, along with other clergy and supporting staff.
One of the topics that arose was the question of the admission of homosexual men to Catholic seminaries. Soon afterwards, rumours began to circulate that Francis had used an off-colour term in the context of the discussion, saying there’s already too much frociaggine in seminaries, which translates roughly to “faggotry”.
Some argued that since Italian was not the Pope’s mother tongue, he may not have understood that the term in question was offensive, especially given his reputation as the Pope of “Who am I to judge?”
Francis built a reputation for being friendly toward the LGBTQ+ community and its related issues, so media at the time took the position that he must have used the term almost accidentally, without intending to shock or offend.
The flurry of immediate backlash from the comment prompted a Vatican spokesman to put out a statement apologising, saying the Pope “never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he apologises to those who felt offended by the use of a term, as reported by others”.
In a May 28 statement, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni reiterated previous statements from Francis that “in the Church there is space for everyone, for everyone! No one is useless, no one is superfluous, there is space for all. Just as we are, everyone”.
But Pope Francis used the term again a month later, in a June 2024 meeting with priests in the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome. The Italian news service ANSA reported that on that occasion, Francis said: “In Vaticano c’è aria di frociaggine” – meaning: “In the Vatican, there is an air of faggotry.”
That comment contradicted the initial narrative that the Pope did not know what he was saying when he used the term frociaggine. Instead, it indicated that Francis knew full well what the term signified and chose to employ a second time in public as he had a point to make.
What Francis demonstrated in the frocaggine fiasco, writes Crux Vatican correspondent Elise Ann Allen, was that despite his insistence on the need to be more welcoming toward members of the LBGTQ+ community, he clearly believed that there was an unhealthy gay element to clerical culture, and thought it was important enough to speak out about it.
On 7 May, Müller and his fellow cardinals – the so-called “Princes of the Church” – will gather inside the Sistine Chapel to pick a successor to Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday at the age of 88 years old.
The date of the conclave was decided at a meeting of cardinals behind closed doors on Monday, two days after Pope Francis’s spectacular funeral in St Peter’s Square, reports the Telegraph.
The term “conclave” is derived from the Latin that means “with key”, and refers to cardinals being locked inside the chapel. Coming in the wake of a successful movie depiction of a conclave, the forthcoming gathering of cardinals to decide who will lead the world’s roughly 1.4 billion Catholics is being portrayed by much of the media as a battle between, in the words of the Telegraph, “progressives who want to continue the inclusive legacy of the late pope and traditionalists who want to roll back his reforms”.
In total, there are 252 cardinals in the Catholic church, but only 135 – those aged under 80 – are eligible to vote. Two have dropped out for medical reasons, another due to controversy, reducing the number of cardinal electors to 132.
Pope Francis appointed 108 of the cardinals – about 80 per cent – which it is argued gives the College of Cardinals a more “liberal” character, thereby making it more likely, it is reasoned, that they will choose someone with a liberal and reformist attitude similar to the late pontiff.
At the same time, however, conclaves have a track record of defying expectations and producing a pope that few saw coming.
The length of this coming conclave could well be impacted by the historically high number of cardinal electors and the sharply divergent views they hold.
The Telegraph reports the former head of the Italian Bishops Conference, 83-year-old Gualtiero Bassetti, explaining that it is hard to predict how long the conclave will last, though he suspects it won’t be long.
“There could be some difficulties because there have never been so many cardinal electors and many of them don’t know each other,” Cardinal Bassetti said.
“I have the feeling that this will not be a long conclave. Even among cardinals that I don’t know, and among those who come from the far reaches of the world, I see a great love for the Church and the desire for it to have a new leader as soon as possible.”
The longest conclave in history, which took place in the 13th century, lasted two years and nine months, while the longest during the 20th century lasted for five days.
The last two conclaves – those that elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 and Pope Francis in 2013 – lasted two days.
The cardinal electors come from 71 countries, with 53 from Europe, 23 from Asia, 21 from Latin America, 18 from Africa and 16 from North Africa.
Cardinal Müller has also warned, speaking out recently on a separate and earlier occasion, that the Catholic Church risks a schism if it does not choose an “orthodox” leader.
He has also criticised the use of labels “liberal” and “conservative” within the Catholic Church, pointing out the divide in the Church is deeper. The new pope, he said, “must be orthodox – neither a liberal nor a conservative”.
He said that “the question is not between conservatives and liberals but between orthodoxy and heresy”, adding: “I am praying that the Holy Spirit will illuminate the cardinals, because a heretic pope who changes every day depending on what the mass media is saying would be catastrophic.”
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Photo: German Cardinal Cardinal Gerhard Müller attends the swearing in ceremony for new members of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard at the Cortile di San Damaso, Vatican City, 6 May 2015. The ceremony is held on May 6 every year to commemorate the 147 halberdiers who died defending the Pope in 1527. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images.)