Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller

Photo: CNS/Paul Haring

Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Dioceses/Religious Orders: Diocese of Mainz, Diocese of Regensburg,

Müller reinstated Peter Kramer as a priest after he was ordered to undergo therapy for a pedophilia conviction in 2000. Müller did not inform the diocese, and Kramer was accused in 2007 of abuse in his new parish. As hundreds of abuse cases were brought forward in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Müller stated that the blame in abuse cases was solely on the perpetrator, not the diocese or bishop, telling media, "If a schoolteacher abuses a child, it is not the school nor the Ministry of Education that are to blame." In 2016, Fritz Wallner, a former chair of the lay diocesan council in Regensburg, Germany, alleged that Müller as Bishop of Regensburg had "systematically" “thwarted the investigation of abuse” in the "Regensburger Domspatzen" boys' choir. Georg Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI's brother, led the choir from 1964 to 1994. An independent report by an attorney showed that at least three times as many boys had been abused between 1953-1992 than were reported by the diocese.

Müller was named in a 2016 complaint by a French victim of Rev. Bernard Preynat against Cardinal Barbarin for "failure to report sexual assaults on minors under the age of fifteen" and “endangering the lives of others.”

Under Müller’s leadership, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) was placed under investigation in 2015 for financial improprieties involving hundreds of thousands of euros of “administrative income,” including that from cases of sexual abuse of minors. Sources told the Pillar that “tens of thousands of euros in departmental funds were kept in cash in office drawers and used as unreceipted discretionary funds by officials” and that a sum of €200,000 was deposited in Müller’s personal account rather than the dicastery’s account. In 2017, Müller was removed as Prefect of the CDF after revelations of a 2000-case backlog of abuse claims and criticism from former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins of an “unacceptable” level of resistance to the commission’s recommendations. In an open letter Collins revealed that Müller’s CDF ignored or blocked reforms approved by the pope to protect children and care for victims. Müller admitted he opposed even sending acknowledgment letters to survivors, and he resisted the implementation of a tribunal to judge bishops for abuse and negligence — despite it being mandated by Pope Francis.