Cardinal Müller: SSPX must stay ‘within the Church’ to have a ‘positive effect’
The latest development in the SSPX case sees Cardinal Müller warn against the planned consecrations, while proposing a canonical solution for the Society.
VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Cardinal Gerhard Müller has issued a firm critique of the Society of St. Pius X’s planned episcopal consecrations, while simultaneously proposing a possible canonical solution for the Society – with whom he used to meet while leading the Holy See’s “dialogue” for Pope Francis.
In a German article published on Saturday morning, Cardinal Müller issued a lengthy response to the SSPX’s intent to consecrate new bishops on July 1 and its rejection of Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández’s proposed terms for “dialogue.”
Müller, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) from 2012 through 2017, used to led the Holy See’s dealings with the Society in that capacity – meetings on which the Society does not look back fondly, a reality which Müller admits in his analysis. {The full text of Müller’s statement is found below this article}
“If the Society of St. Pius X wants to have a positive effect on church history, then it cannot fight for the true faith from a distance, outside the Church, against the Church united with the Pope, but only within the Church and with the Pope and all orthodox bishops, theologians, and believers,” the cardinal wrote. “Otherwise, their protest will remain ineffective and will be mockingly misused by heretical groups to accuse orthodox Catholics of sterile traditionalism and narrow-minded fundamentalism.”
Müller, a champion of Pope Benedict XVI’s style of interpreting Vatican II, warned that “Church history teaches us how schisms, unlike heresies, arose and became entrenched even among orthodox Catholics.”
The German cardinal defended the SSPX’s Catholic beliefs, writing that there could be “no doubt that the Society of St. Pius X agrees with the Catholic faith in terms of content (apart from Vatican II, which it mistakenly interprets as a departure from tradition).”
But he criticized their concerns about the Second Vatican Council, writing “if they do not recognize Vatican II in whole or in part, they are in contradiction with themselves, since they rightly say that the Second Vatican Council did not present any new doctrine in the form of a defined dogma for all Catholics to believe.”
Müller’s defense of the documents of Vatican II is in stark contrast with the criticism levied against them by the Society.
For Müller, the Council’s “sole purpose was to present to the faithful, in a dogmatic manner and in their overall context, the teachings that had always been valid concerning divine revelation (Dei verbum) and the Church of the Triune God (Lumen gentium). Nor was the liturgy to be reformed as if it were outdated. Contrary to the progressive narrative, the Church does not need to undergo any medical rejuvenation treatments as if it were undergoing a biological aging process.”
Juxtaposed to this is the Society’s argument regarding the Council and the interpretations of it which have been given official status. As outlined in the Society’s letter to the Holy See from February 18:
“We both know in advance that we cannot agree doctrinally, particularly regarding the fundamental orientations adopted since the Second Vatican Council. This disagreement, for the Society’s part, does not stem from a mere difference of opinion, but from a genuine case of conscience, arising from what has proven to be a rupture with the Tradition of the Church.”
Müller has emerged as one of the few cardinals to raise public concerns over doctrinal issues under Pope Francis, along with the liturgy restrictions issued via Traditionis Custodes.
For the cardinal, such criticism of current issues is welcome and even correct. He defended the right of “every Catholic” to “criticize” Traditionis Custodes and “its often unworthy implementation by spiritually overwhelmed bishops, as well as their flawed theological argumentation and pastoral recklessness.”
Going further he argued how “nor can any true Catholic be expected to accept uncritically every document that comes from Rome or an episcopal authority.”
But Müller differentiated between this and the argument that the Novus Ordo Mass “contradicts the tradition of the Church as the normative criterion for the interpretation of revelation (and is permeated by Masonic ideas).” This view, wrote Müller, “is theologically absurd and unworthy of a serious Catholic.”
Instead, he argued that liturgical abuses were not “to be blamed on the rite of the Novus Ordo or even on the Council, but on those who, through ignorance or frivolity, are guilty of these blasphemies and liturgical abuses before God and the Church.”
Other prelates, such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider, have been more extensive than Müller in critiquing the Council. Schneider – who notably served as Apostolic Visitor to the SSPX for the Holy See under Pope Francis – wrote in 2020 that “we are now witnessing the climax of the spiritual disaster in the life of the Church to which Archbishop Lefebvre pointed so vigorously already forty years ago.”
Schneider has encouraged a response to the Council which does not reject it in its entirety nor erase it from history, but instead would see the Church issue formal corrections over certain passages in the documents.
Olive-branch and canonical suggestion
Seemingly one of the final straws for the Society was Cdl. Fernández’s document Mater Populi Fidelis attacking the Marian title of Co-Redemptrix, though not rejecting the title as being untrue since such an argument would directly contradict Church teaching and Tradition. This doctrinal attack has been cited regularly by the Society in recent days, as the negotiations between them and the Holy See have been publicized.
Müller, it seems, sought to offer an olive branch to the Society by commenting how their concerns over the document are shared by many:
Orthodox [meaning faithful] bishops have also taken offense at more recent documents in which dogmatic and pastoral arguments have been confused in an amateurish manner, or when ill-considered statements have been made that – relativizing Christ – all religions are paths to God, while with regard to Maria Co-redemptrix et Mediatrix omnium gratiarum, the sole mediatorship of Christ was insisted upon without regard for the Church’s teaching on Mary’s cooperation in Christ’s work of salvation.
This always happens when bishops pay more attention to public appeal than to making use of scholarly, faithful theology and proclaiming the Word of God and the truth of the faith “in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2).
But in the face of this “internal confusion” in the Church, through which “great uncertainties in dogmatic questions and even heresies have also penetrated the Church,” Müller argued that the Society must “submit” to Pope Leo XIV’s “teaching authority and primacy of jurisdiction without preconditions.”
“The only solution possible in conscience before God is for the Society of St. Pius X, with its bishops, priests, and laity, to recognize our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV as the legitimate Pope, not only in theory but also in practice, and to submit to his teaching authority and primacy of jurisdiction without preconditions,” he wrote.
Having predicated this, the former prefect of the CDF suggested a potential solution for the Society regarding their canonical status:
“Then a just solution can also be found for their canonical status, for example by granting their prelate ordinary jurisdiction over the Society, who would be directly subject to the Pope (perhaps without the mediation of a Curial authority). But these are canonical and practical conclusions that are only valid if they are dogmatically consistent with Catholic ecclesiology.”
Müller’s argument, that the SSPX would be “outside the Church” should they proceed with the episcopal consecrations, is hotly contested by the Society themselves, and has been since the 1988 consecrations.
Just this week, the Society published a theological op-ed arguing that – due to the differentiation of how a candidate receives between episcopal jurisdiction and episcopal order – the planned consecrations on July 1 “will therefore assume no jurisdiction against the will of the Pope, and will in no way be schismatic.”
Cardinal Müller’s full text is found below, translated from the original German.
At its meeting in Menzingen on February 18, 2026, the General Council of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X published a reply to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
It refers to the long path of intensive dialogue between the Holy See and the Society until the fateful date of June 6, 2017. This is followed by a harsh assignment of sole blame at the end of this—in their view—hopeful dialogue with the assertion: “But everything ultimately ended in a drastic manner due to a unilateral decision by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Müller, who solemnly laid down the minimum requirements for full communion with the Catholic Church, explicitly including the entire Council and the ‘post-Council’.”
Since this concerns the high good of the unity of the Catholic Church, which we all profess in faith, personal sensitivities should take a back seat.
Church history teaches us how schisms, unlike heresies, arose and became entrenched even among orthodox Catholics. The reasons for this were human shortcomings, theological dogmatism, and a lack of sensitivity on the part of legitimate authority. We should remember the Donatists, with whom St. Augustine had to contend, and the controversy surrounding Jansenism, which led to the schism of Utrecht with the illegitimate consecration of Cornelius Steenoven (October 15, 1724), and also the Old Catholics after the First Vatican Council with the illegitimate episcopal consecration of Hubert Reinkens (August 11, 1873), although this group certainly slipped into heresy with its formal denial of the dogma of the infallibility of the Roman Pope and his primacy of jurisdiction.
But there are clear criteria for Catholic orthodoxy and full Catholic membership that have been formulated since the martyr bishop Ignatius of Antioch (at the beginning of the 2nd century) and have since been increasingly refined, especially at the Council of Trent against the Protestants. This essentially includes full communion with the universal Church and especially with the College of Bishops, which has in the Roman Pope, as the personal successor of St. Peter, its perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity in revealed truth. Other ecclesial communities may claim to be Catholic because they agree wholly or almost wholly with the faith of the Catholic Church, but they are not Catholic if they do not also formally recognize and practice the Pope as the highest authority and sacramental and canonical unity with him.
There is no doubt that the Society of St. Pius X agrees with the Catholic faith in terms of content (apart from Vatican II, which it mistakenly interprets as a departure from tradition). And if they do not recognize Vatican II in whole or in part, they are in contradiction with themselves, since they rightly say that the Second Vatican Council did not present any new doctrine in the form of a defined dogma for all Catholics to believe. The Council itself is clearly aware that it stands in the line of all ecumenical councils, especially the Council of Trent and Vatican I. Its sole purpose was to present to the faithful, in a dogmatic manner and in their overall context, the teachings that had always been valid concerning divine revelation (Dei verbum) and the Church of the Triune God (Lumen gentium). Nor was the liturgy to be reformed as if it were outdated.
Contrary to the progressive narrative, the Church does not need to undergo any medical rejuvenation treatments as if it were undergoing a biological aging process. For it was founded once and for all by Christ, because in his divine person all newness came into the world in an unsurpassable way and remains present in the teaching, life, and liturgy of the Church until his return at the end of history (Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies IV, 34, 1). The Church, as the body of Christ and temple of the Holy Spirit, is young and alive until the last day (even if some in it appear old through unbelief and sin, i.e., not wanting to overcome the old Adam within themselves).
The substance of the sacraments and their essential form are given to us and are beyond the reach of any intervention by the Church (Council of Trent, Decree on Communion under One Form, 2nd Cap: DH 1728), while ecclesiastical authority is entitled to determine their ritual form, but not arbitrarily and authoritatively, but with great consideration for the established ecclesiastical traditions and the sensitivity and sense of faith of the faithful. Conversely, therefore, the assertion that the Latin liturgy according to the Missale and Rituale Romanum (according to the rite antiquior) is illegitimate because the law of prayer is the law of faith (Ps-Coelestin, Indiculus, cap. 8: DH 246) is theologically incorrect. This principle refers to the content of the faith expressed in the sacraments, not to their external ritual form, of which there have been many variations throughout the history of the Church to the present day.
In this respect, every Catholic is entitled to criticize the motu proprio “Traditionis custodes” (2021) and its often unworthy implementation by spiritually overwhelmed bishops, as well as their flawed theological argumentation and pastoral recklessness. But also the doubt that the Holy Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI (e.g., because of the possibility of concelebration, the direction of the altar, the use of the vernacular) contradicts the tradition of the Church as the normative criterion for the interpretation of revelation (and is permeated by Masonic ideas) is theologically absurd and unworthy of a serious Catholic.
The actual abuse of the liturgy (Carnival Masses, the atheistic rainbow flag in the church, arbitrary changes according to one’s own taste) is not to be blamed on the rite of the Novus Ordo or even on the Council, but on those who, through ignorance or frivolity, are guilty of these blasphemies and liturgical abuses before God and the Church.
Nor can any true Catholic be expected to accept uncritically every document that comes from Rome or an episcopal authority. Already Irenaeus of Lyon, Cyprian of Carthage, Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Catherine of Siena, Cardinal Bellarmine, Bishop Ketteler of Mainz to Pius IX) and many others have rightly complained about certain statements and actions (such as the authoritarian mass disenfranchisement of many religious communities during the last pontificate, which were arbitrarily placed under commissariat).
And so orthodox bishops have also taken offense at more recent documents in which dogmatic and pastoral arguments have been confused in an amateurish manner, or when ill-considered statements have been made that – relativizing Christ – all religions are paths to God, while with regard to Maria Coredemptrix et Mediatrix omnium gratiarum, the sole mediatorship of Christ was insisted upon without regard for the Church’s teaching on Mary’s cooperation in Christ’s work of salvation. This always happens when bishops pay more attention to public appeal than to making use of scholarly, faithful theology and proclaiming the Word of God and the truth of the faith “in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2).
READ — Behind the rhetoric surrounding the Synod on Synodality is “the concept to create another church, not a Catholic church,” Cardinal Gerhard Müller
But looking at the entire history of the Church and theology, I am fully convinced that the Church cannot be overcome by anything or anyone, not only through external attacks, but also through internal confusion.
Not only the Society of St. Pius X, but also a large part of the Catholic faithful rightly lament that, under the pretext of renewing the Church—with the process of self-secularization—great uncertainties in dogmatic questions and even heresies have also penetrated the Church. But even in the 2000-year history of the Church, heresies from Arianism to modernism were overcome only by those who remained in the Church and did not stray from the side of the Pope.
If the Society of St. Pius X wants to have a positive effect on church history, then it cannot fight for the true faith from a distance, outside the Church, against the Church united with the Pope, but only within the Church and with the Pope and all orthodox bishops, theologians, and believers. Otherwise, their protest will remain ineffective and will be mockingly misused by heretical groups to accuse orthodox Catholics of sterile traditionalism and narrow-minded fundamentalism.
This can be studied in particular in the so-called Synodal Path, where the aim is in fact to introduce heretical teachings, especially in the adoption of atheistic anthropologies, and to establish a kind of Anglican church constitution (with a self-appointed church leadership consisting of weak court bishops and power-conscious, ideologically stubborn lay officials). This is diametrically opposed to the sacramental and apostolic constitution of the Catholic Church (Council of Trent, Decree on the Sacrament of Holy Orders, Cap. 4: DH 1767-1770; Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Art. 18-29). A German National Church established by human statutes, which only symbolically recognizes the Pope as its honorary head, would no longer be Catholic, and belonging to it would not be necessary for salvation. For, as St. Augustine says: “Whoever does not love the unity of the Church does not possess the love of God. For this reason, it is rightly said: Only in the Catholic Church is the Holy Spirit received.” (de baptismo 3, 21).
In any case, no single group, such as the Donatists (the pars Donati) at that time, can oppose the entirety of the Church, the Catholica, the acceptance of the defined doctrine of faith, by appealing to its own subjective conscience of truth. Then one would have to have the honesty to renounce its unity completely, but also to consistently take on the odium of a schismatic. The Second Vatican Council did not proclaim a new dogma, but only presented the ever-valid dogmatic teaching in a new light in a different intellectual and cultural-historical context. Here, there is nothing to interpret from subjective premises, but every Catholic must inform themselves about the teaching of the Church and, if necessary, allow themselves to be corrected.
Anything that does not concern binding doctrine on faith and morals is left to free theological discussion. For the overall hermeneutics of the Church’s faith, Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition, and the (infallible) magisterium of the Pope and bishops (especially in the Ecumenical Council) are considered the ultimate norms for understanding the revealed faith. The magisterial documents, which claim varying degrees of binding authority, are to be interpreted according to the proven system of degrees of theological certainty.
No orthodox Catholic can claim reasons of conscience if he withdraws from the formal authority of the Pope with regard to the visible unity of the sacramental Church in order to establish an ecclesiastical order that is not fully in communion with him in the form of an emergency church, which would correspond to the Protestant argumentation of the 16th century. Such a schismatic attitude cannot invoke an emergency that may only affect the individual salvation of a few or even many. Anyone affected by an unjust excommunication, as even St. Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church, once was, must spiritually come to terms with this for the good of the Church without questioning the unity of the Church through disobedience. Every Catholic will agree with the young Martin Luther in his fight against the unworthy sale of indulgences and the secularization of the Church, but will sharply criticize him for disregarding the threat of excommunication, rejecting ecclesiastical authority, and placing his judgment above that of the Church in his interpretation of Revelation.
The well-formed conscience of a Catholic, and especially of a validly ordained bishop and one who is to receive episcopal ordination, will never administer or receive holy orders against the successor of St. Peter, to whom the Son of God himself entrusted the leadership of the universal Church, and thus be guilty of a grave sin against the unity, holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity of the Church of Christ, revealed by God.
The only solution possible in conscience before God is for the Society of St. Pius X, with its bishops, priests, and laity, to recognize our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV as the legitimate Pope, not only in theory but also in practice, and to submit to his teaching authority and primacy of jurisdiction without preconditions.
Then a just solution can also be found for their canonical status, for example by granting their prelate ordinary jurisdiction over the Society, who would be directly subject to the Pope (perhaps without the mediation of a Curial authority). But these are canonical and practical conclusions that are only valid if they are dogmatically consistent with Catholic ecclesiology. Like any other orthodox Catholic, the Society of St. Pius X is right to take the teaching of the First Vatican Council to heart and to let it guide its actions:
“We therefore teach and declare that, by virtue of the Lord’s command, the Roman Church has primacy of ordinary power over all others, and that this truly episcopal jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff is immediate, to which the pastors and faithful and the pastors of every rite and every rank, both individually and collectively, are obliged to hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in matters relating to faith and morals, but also in those concerning the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the whole world; so that, by preserving unity both in communion and in the same creed with the Roman Pope, the Church of Christ is one flock under one supreme shepherd.
This is the teaching of Catholic truth, from which no one can deviate without prejudice to his faith and salvation.” (First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church “Pastor aeternus,” Cap. 3: DH 3060).
Statement originally published at Kath.net in German.
Frankly, at this point I don’t give a flying *fluff-n-nutter* what Muller has to say. Can’t be outside the Church if you’re upholding the traditional teachings when no one else is.
Muller speaks like he doesn't see we are in the post-muller and post-benedict epoch, and definitively so.