One of the foremost conservative members of the College of Cardinals has castigated mass migration, spoken of the danger of "civil wars," and called for greater recognition that "nations" and peoples have rights in an exclusive interview with europeanconservative.com. Faced with unprecedented demographic shifts, the former curial official insists that now is the time for politicians and citizens of European and Western nations to take up responsibility and "decide if they want to be marginalised in their own country."
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller is an imposing man. The former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—initially founded as the Roman Inquisition—under Popes Benedict XVI and Francis, he once occupied the arguably most powerful and influential post in the Catholic Church behind that of the papacy itself. A tall and well-built Rhinelander, he speaks slowly and carefully. Seated in front of his extensive library in his reception room, he confided frankly, giving intellectually formed answers.
It irritates Cardinal Müller that, after the politically progressive sympathies of Pope Francis, observers inside and outside of the Church mistake these stances for those of authentic Catholic belief and doctrine. Elsewhere, he has criticised an exaggerated understanding of papal infallibility, often referred to as 'ultramontanism' and a "cult of the personality" surrounding Pope Francis. Müller condemns this error "that says every private meaning of the Pope is a dogma or is an interpretation of the revealed truth."
Müller says explicitly that, while under very specific, rare, and limited circumstances papal infallibility does exist for Catholics, this categorically does not extend to "his private understanding about migrants and so forth."
"He has to defend the human rights of everybody," he explained. "But it is another question entirely whether there should come, in ten years, millions and millions of Muslim migrants to change, totally, the culture and provoke civil wars, as happens in majority Muslim countries."
Müller went further: "It is impossible, integration, if a big majority do not become Christian."
"In nearly all the Muslim countries, there is an oppression of Christian communities," he continued. "When I ask ChatGPT, and AI, it says Muslims are tolerant. The next question I ask is, can you tell me one [Muslim majority] country where Christians have the same rights? And they can say nothing."
"There is no good answer," he said. "In this question, it is the responsibility of the politicians and the citizens of the countries to decide if they want to be marginalised in their own country."
Müller recognised that this trend is beneficial neither for Europeans and Western peoples nor for the Church. He observed that "everywhere" we are observing an increase in "attacks against the church buildings and against Christian values and ideas." The former of which, anti-Christian hate crimes, have been rising exponentially and are assiduously documented by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians, which helped bring a formal challenge to the European Parliament in 2025 for their inaction to confront it.
"But it is also our fault," Müller reflected, suggesting that mass migration is inextricably related to unresolved crises in birth rates and fertility. "I remember when I was young, there was harsh politics against the family, matrimony, against children. This demographic catastrophe is man-made. Like in China with their stupid one-child policy."
Although he believes there are adverse material, social, and political conditions making family formation difficult, Müller also believes there are ideational and spiritual anti-familial forces let loose upon the population.
"It's a natural feeling to have children if you are living in matrimony," he said. "It's against nature and against grace not to."
Müller believes that states, "feeling in a paternalistic way", that place obstacles in the way of this do so illegitimately and are "always wrong" to do so.
"The state is only there for the common good, for infrastructure," he clarified. "But it has no right to interfere in the natural law and the moral life… States [oftentimes] feel like gods who can instrumentalise the lives of people only for the interests of the powerful."
Asked about whether Catholic philosophy, which has historically rejected atomistic individualism, and whether the Church has responded as swiftly and competently to the errors of the age this century—particularly surrounding the rights of indigenous peoples and of nations—he agrees that this warrants serious attention.
He stated that "now we also have to defend the right of the nations" to exist and sustain themselves.
Articulating his understanding, Müller explained that "nations developed in the West after the Roman Empire" and the arrival of the Christian faith. He acknowledged that there have been excesses of nationalism and imperialism and colonialism in the past, aspects of which have been "terrible" and "absolutely anti-Christian."
Nevertheless, he does not believe nations or ethnic differences to be something evil to be destroyed but instead sees them as something that helpfully and healthily orders societies along the model of the extended family.
"Because we are not isolated individuals, we are persons," he said. "We are families. We share language, the same culture, the same schools, the same legends. We have the beginnings here of certain identities, of literature and arts, and so on."
This is necessary, he believes, for belonging and to form lasting attachments, as "nobody can learn all the languages [or] realise all the possibilities."
Müller recognises there is often necessarily an ethnic and ancestral component to nationalities, which have real cultural and historical and ideational forms and shapes, meaning that "we can say 'I'm a typical Englishman or German' without absolutising it."
"Jesus became flesh in all human contexts," he continued. "Therefore there is a right for all nations to continue with their special culture without contradiction to the others. It is a good image to say we are a family in mankind. But we are in a European family and so on."
Müller indicated the fourth commandment, suggesting that the natural and divine call to patriotism and serving one's own parents are closely intertwined—the latter of which in the fourth commandment the Catholic Church has historically interpreted as also extending to reasonable honour rendered to one's own ancestors and people.
"We are against globalism. We are a universal Church. But a universal Church in the house of my father," Müller clarified. "There are different habitations for everyone."