Is a Schism in the Air? An interview with Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller

Vatican (kath.net) The decisions of the Second Vatican Council were not accepted by all Catholics. Some contented themselves with critical statements, but Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, who served, among other things, as Archbishop of Dakar, rejected even fundamental reforms initiated by the Council, including the declaration Nostra Aetate—the declaration that regulates the new relationship between the Church and the Jews. Furthermore, he rejected the liturgical reform of 1965 as well as the ecumenical movement. His firm rejection met with fierce opposition within the Church. In order to institutionalize his conservative position, he founded the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (FSSPX) in 1970. Through the mediation of the then-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, an agreement could be reached, but in 1988 Lefebvre consecrated four bishops, which the Church regarded as a schismatic act that resulted in excommunication. Through a process of clemency, Benedict XVI lifted this ecclesiastical penalty, while upholding the canonical and theological positions.

In the meantime, not only Bishop Lefebvre has passed away, but also two of the bishops he had ordained. The two remaining bishops are well advanced in age, so there is a risk that upon their passing there will be no bishop left who could ordain priests, which would result in the priesthood of the FSSPX dying out. To prevent this, new bishops are to be consecrated on July 1, 2026. This has met with a pushback from within the Church. About this pushback, we spoke with Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Lothar C. Rilinger: Can you describe which resolutions of Vatican II Bishop Lefebvre and the FSSPX reject?

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Above all, in the teaching on religious freedom as a fundamental right before God alone—free from state coercion and ideological indoctrination—to follow the truth that is plausible to conscience, they see a deviation from the Catholic belief that the Catholic Church alone proclaims and presents for belief the fullness of God’s revelation in Christ.

The Fraternity of St. Pius X interprets religious freedom in the spirit of 19th-century relativistic liberalism, which rejects revelation and turned religion into a matter of taste and subjective feeling rather than a quest for truth. In contrast, according to the FSSPX, the Catholic state has a duty to promote the Catholic religion as the only true one and to deny error any right to existence in the public sphere.

In the Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, however, the Council makes precisely this distinction between religious freedom as a natural human right and the freedom of the human person to respond to the revealed Word of God with reason and freedom and to recognize in Christ the fullness of the truth of God and of humanity.

Under today’s conditions of a pluralistic society, and especially in anti-religious socialist or radical Islamist states, however, we can be glad if public authority does not interfere in religion and morality. Invoking freedom of religion and conscience, Catholics—especially within the EU, which unfortunately tends to be hostile towards Christianity—can exercise their right to reject abortion, euthanasia, and the relativization of marriage between a man and a woman.

To still speak here of Catholic states that are supposed to use state measures to socially enforce the still-valid doctrine of the Catholic Church’s necessity for salvation seems rather anachronistic.

The FSSPX’s objections to the ecumenical quest for the unity of all Christians in the one Catholic Church—which finds its visible expression in the Pope—likewise miss the point of the resolutions of Vatican II. In no way did the Council call into question the uniqueness of the Church of Christ, which the declaration Dominus Jesus, made by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the year 2000 under Cardinal Ratzinger, affirmed. The goal, rather, was to acknowledge non-Catholic Christians, who had not personally separated themselves from the Catholic Church but who, in good faith, hold fast to the claim to truth of the denomination in which they were raised, and to seek with them ways to rediscover unity in faith, the sacraments, and the Church’s constitution, as Jesus himself, the founder of the Church as the visible expression of his unity with the Father (Jn. 17), had intended.

Rilinger: What are the dogmatic consequences when a Catholic priest is no longer willing to uphold the entirety of the Church’s doctrine?

Cardinal Müller: Through the sacrament of Holy Orders, bishops, priests, and deacons are bound both internally and externally to proclaim the faith of the Church through the word and to bear witness to it by their lives. If they deviate significantly and evidently and do not heed the admonitions of their superior, canonical penalties may be imposed on them depending on the circumstances, up to and including removal from their offices; however, due to the objective efficacy of the sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, and in this case the Sacrament of Holy Orders), they do not lose the character imprinted upon them at ordination. This is the well-known distinction between the unauthorized yet valid administration of the sacraments.

In his response to Donatism, St. Augustine himself had already asserted that the efficacy of the sacraments does not depend on the personal holiness, morality, or ecclesiality of the minister, because Christ is the true agent in the sacraments. The Catholic Church recognizes the sacraments in the Orthodox Church because it has validly ordained bishops and priests, even though it does not fully and completely recognize the primacy of the Roman Church and does not live in full ecclesial communion with the successor of St. Peter, the Pope.

Rilinger: In 1988, Pope John Paul II excommunicated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905–1991). This ecclesiastical penalty was later revoked. What are the legal and canonical consequences of excommunication for a Catholic?

Cardinal Müller: The excommunication of the four bishops ordained by Lefebvre was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in January 2009 in order to facilitate the reintegration of the FSSPX into the Catholic Church, after this possibility had emerged in the course of the dialogue. However, there was unexpected polemic against Pope Benedict after the fact when it became known that Bishop Williamson had denied or at least downplayed the Holocaust. The issue of ecclesiastical punishment and the personal stance of one of the four protagonists on the Holocaust, however, have nothing to do with each other in and of themselves.

Full canonical reintegration of the FSSPX did not occur, however, because the Fraternity clung to its allegations against the Second Vatican Council and accused the Church as a whole—due to post-conciliar developments, but also due to actual aberrations from the Catholic faith by individual bishops and theologians and malpractices in the liturgy—of no longer being fully Catholic in the sense of the tradition that the FSSPX upholds and feels obliged to defend as solely valid—even against the Pope if necessary. However, the Fraternity seems to notice how this contradicts the Catholic belief that in cases of doubt the Roman Pope is the final arbiter of Catholicity.

Rilinger: Does the lifting of excommunication serve the same function as, in state criminal procedure law, the annulment of a conviction by a judgment that constitutes full rehabilitation, since the criminal charge is withdrawn in its entirety? In other words, does the lifting of excommunication also mean that the grounds for excommunication are considered to be no longer extant?

Cardinal Müller: This cannot be compared to state criminal law. Ecclesiastical penalties must be distinguished from the penalties for sin, which God alone imposes and forgives, especially in the Sacrament of Penance; from the disciplinary penalties of the Church, which are intended to admonish the offender and lead him back to the right path; and from so-called coercive penalties. In the case of a lifelong ban on exercising the priestly ministry, the issue is not a penitential punishment for the act, which is dealt with civilly by the state and ecclesiastically in the sacrament of penance, but rather the protection of the faithful from further misconduct by a clergyman or church employee who cannot hide behind his ecclesiastical authority.

Rilinger: If the lifting of the excommunication does not constitute rehabilitation—what does it mean, then?

Card. Müller: As I said, this was the unusual path of leniency taken by Benedict XVI, who hoped that the lifting of the excommunication would lead to the discernment and conversion of the reprimanded FSSPX bishops, and who did not anticipate that some would interpret his great concession as a sign of weakness.

 The Pope will always go to the limits of what is possible in his ministry of ensuring or restoring the unity of the Church, while those who have strayed, in their spiritual arrogance, take this as an opportunity to set conditions. The Pope may make certain concessions regarding secondary matters, but not concerning the substance of the faith, the sacraments, or the sacramental constitution of the Church, established by the Apostles with Peter at the head, i.e. the bishops and the Roman Pontiff. For the sake of unity, the Pope can readily grant the FSSPX the right to celebrate Holy Mass and the other sacraments in the liturgical form prior to the liturgical reform. For one must distinguish the dogmatic substance of the sacraments from the various rites in which they are celebrated.

With great wisdom, Benedict distinguished within the Latin Rite: the renewed liturgy as the ordinary form and the (so-called “Tridentine”) celebration according to the 1962 Missal as the extraordinary form within the same Latin Rite. Apart from the Latin Rite, there are actually many other (20–25) legitimate rites within the Catholic Church, especially in the Eastern Catholic Churches.

The liturgy as such is not the problem, but rather the unfounded accusation by the FSSPX that the Catholic Church, under Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis and Leo XIV, has dogmatically deviated from the Catholic faith, absurdly counting the Novus Ordo Mass among the deviations, which according to the Fraternity contains dogmatic errors, such as the fact that its sacrificial character has, if not denied, at least been obscured in favor of a mere memorial meal.

Rilinger: The accusation of not upholding the full teaching of the Church thus remains even after the lifting of the excommunication. But for what reason did the Church nevertheless refrain from explicitly speaking of a schism following the ordination of four bishops by Bishop Lefebvre, even though the denial of even a single part of the teaching is actually regarded as a secession?

Card. Müller: Some have spoken of a schism, others have not. Officially, the matter was left in limbo so as not to consolidate, through harsh language, the very situation one was trying to overcome. A schism also entails that the parties concerned deliberately break away from the Catholic Church, its teachings, and the criteria of its unity, particularly the unity in the Roman Pontiff. The FSSPX has not yet formally expressed this in such terms, but it sees itself as a community of necessity that will remain at a distance until the millions of Catholics who have fallen for modernism, along with thousands of priests and bishops and the current Pope, have returned to that Church, which the FSSPX as the holy remnant of the one true Catholic Church has preserved.

In a statement addressed to Pope Leo XIV from May 2026, the Fraternity calls for a rejection of the conciliar and post-conciliar “errors” that contradict the “pre-conciliar tradition” and that have crept into the Church despite the Fraternity’s warnings, and against which the Magisterium has failed to intervene. The self-conception demanded by the FSSPX, namely that the Catholic Church is the only community in the apostolic tradition that can claim to be founded by Christ, has, of course, never been questioned by the Magisterium. As for the demand repeated here that there should be no religiously neutral state and that the Church must subject the state to Christ and to itself, the FSSPX should maybe name the countries in which it intends to implement this program.

Of course, for every Catholic, the spiritual authority of the Pope, who is the guardian of truth, peace, and human dignity, stands above the worldly authorities, which are guided by interests, power, and influence. But much is already achieved when states stay out of the question of truth and respect the natural fundamental rights of their citizens—above all their freedom of religion and conscience—and do not, against all common sense, seek to define marriage, for example, as anything other than the union of a man and a woman. All orthodox Catholics are fully justified in saying that the so-called blessings of same-sex couples or those living in other irregular relationships are objectively sinful, but that pastoral care for such persons is necessary in the name of the Good Shepherd, so that they may walk the path of following Christ in accordance with His commandments. But the FSSPX should raise this voice within the Church and not against the Church, thereby giving the impression that the heretical deviations into atheistic rainbow ideology have been granted any right to exist within the Church. Athanasius and Augustine did not distance themselves from the Church while she was still struggling to definitively overcome Arianism and Donatism.

Rilinger: Leading representatives of the FSSPX repeatedly assert that they see themselves as an integral part of the Roman Catholic Church, even though, for dogmatic reasons, they are unable to accept certain decisions of the Council, though they do, in principle, follow most of its resolutions. For what reason is the Church unwilling to tolerate the theology of FSSPX—especially given that the Fraternity is considered appealing by many devout Catholics and its liturgical practices are also recognized as legitimate by the Church?

Cardinal Müller: One cannot be a good Catholic if one subjects binding statements of the Church’s Magisterium to one’s own subjective standards. The Monophysites claimed to be faithful to the Council of Ephesus (431) and the teaching of the Church Father Cyril of Alexandria, and then rejected the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon (451), which taught the unity of Christ’s divine and human natures in the divine person of the Son within the Trinity. The legitimate differences among theological schools (Thomists, Scotists) and the intellectual originality of individual theologians (such as Romano Guardini or Hans Urs von Balthasar) must not be confused with the necessary unity in the teaching of the Apostles and the Church, as it has been formulated above all in the Councils.

The FSSPX would have to explain the difference between its stance and Luther’s statement during the Leipzig Disputation (1519), which burst the unity of the Church and undermined its authority, when he said: “Even councils can err!”—a statement that also called into question the Pope’s ultimate authority and would place condemned heretics who were rehabilitated as better interpreters of revelation, above the Magisterium.

The entire hermeneutics of the Catholic faith (developed already by Irenaeus of Lyon against the Gnostics, i.e. the know-it-alls of the ages) would be shattered if, outside the Magisterium of the bishops in communion with the Pope, one were to recognize yet another human authority which, based on subjective feeling and discretion, feels authorized to determine the unity of the respectively most recent council with the preceding Magisterium.

From a purely human and theological perspective, too, it is inconceivable that two thousand bishops at the Council and all the popes to date have erred in dogmatic matters or deviated from the apostolic tradition, save for a single bishop who, through illegal episcopal ordinations alone, ensures the survival of the Church, which Jesus promised to the Apostle Peter, whom he regards as the rock of his Church.

Rilinger: Among other things, the priests of the FSSPX reject the new liturgy established by the Second Vatican Council and insist on celebrating Mass according to the Tridentine Rite, which had been in use for nearly 500 years prior to the Council. This rite is held in high esteem, especially in France, and attracts many Catholics, particularly since Benedict XVI and Leo XIV, unlike Francis, have publicly expressed a strong affinity for this rite. Could this old rite, or a combination of the old and the new rite, open up possibilities for encouraging more believers to attend church again?

Cardinal Müller: The old or new rite is not the problem.

Both sides—unfortunately also the authoritarian agitators in the Roman Dicastery for the Liturgy—do not properly appreciate the theological distinction between the substance of the sacraments and the various liturgical forms. A mere disciplinary suppression of the old rite and the general suspicion of its adherents as deniers of Vatican II are not only pastorally questionable but also dogmatically untenable.

I myself have considered the restriction of the celebration of Mass in the old rite to be very unwise from a pastoral standpoint, not because I am a supporter of the old liturgy myself, but because as a Catholic and especially as a theologian, one must also acknowledge the spiritual richness of the older rite, and because there is no justification for haughtily elevating oneself above one’s friends. Incidentally, the liturgical reform did not create a new rite, but merely simplified the previous rite, which itself had emerged from a not always homogeneous development, so that the faithful could participate more easily, both internally and externally (in the vernacular).

Rilinger: The FSSPX is planning new episcopal ordinations to ensure that more priests can be ordained in the future and thus the continued existence of the Fraternity can be guaranteed. For what reason are these ordinations rejected by the Church and regarded as grounds for a schism, even though the ordination of the original four bishops by Bishop Lefebvre was judged unlawful, but not invalid nor constituting a schism?

Cardinal Müller: No one has a right to episcopal consecration, which belongs to the Church and not to individual groups so as to ensure the survival of their organization under purely human law. For then the Church would fall apart into interest groups.

Even if the ordination by a schismatic bishop—even in open opposition to the Pope—is valid, it cannot be dogmatically and morally justified by invoking the salvation of one’s own clientele. Only in a state of extreme persecution, when contact with the universal Church and with Rome is completely impossible, would the ordination of a bishop be morally justified in conscience before God and in the unity with the Pope that is presupposed in the faith.

The appropriate solution would be for the FSSPX not to presume to dictate to the Pope the conditions for its full reintegration into the Catholic Church, but rather, in accordance with the First Vatican Council, to which it so readily appeals, to acknowledge that one cannot be fully Catholic without full communion with Pope Leo XIV. And the Pope’s supreme teaching authority does not derive from the sociological truth that in every community one person must have the final say, but from the institution of the Pope as the Successor of Peter and from the Holy Spirit, who assists him in the exercise of his magisterium and his ministry for the unity of the Church.

Rilinger: If a schism were to occur, the Church would have to part ways with many of the faithful—which would represent a significant loss. Can the Church afford such a loss?

Cardinal Müller: Yes, that would be very sad and a wound inflicted on the Body of Christ, which is the Church. But there have also been many schisms throughout Church history, especially in the 16th century, when the Protestant Reformation led not to a reform of the Church but to the division of Christendom.

One would hope that the FSSPX will not remain confined to its own circle, but instead look to the Church as a whole and learn from the mistakes of Church history. The Fraternity should not follow the path of the Donatists, the Jansenists, and the Old Catholics. One extreme does not justify the other.

Neither so-called progressivism, which surrenders the revealed truth of Christ to the shifting currents of the zeitgeist, nor traditionalism, which reduces the entire tradition of the Church to a few fixed ideas, can be the way of the Church that the Risen Lord has chosen as a sacrament, that is, as a sign and instrument.

Rilinger: Do you see possibilities for reconciliation, even from the perspective that this would preserve the self-understanding and distinct character of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X? Or can you imagine reconciliation only if the Fraternity completely renounces its own path?

Cardinal Müller: It could certainly be recognized as a kind of personal prelature if—like every Catholic—the Fraternity acknowledges the Church’s teaching in its entirety, including the decrees of Vatican II, as they can be authoritatively declared binding only by the bishops in unity with and under the Pope.

Rilinger: The respective Pope is not only the head of the Roman Catholic Church, but also of other Eastern Catholic Churches, whose constitutions, however, differ from that of the Roman Catholic Church. Would it therefore be possible to grant the Fraternity of St. Pius X the same theological and canonical status as the Eastern Churches?

Card. Müller: The constitution of divine law of the one Catholic Church in the various rites is the same everywhere, so that every local Church is governed by a validly ordained bishop in apostolic succession and tradition, but in unity with the entire College of Bishops, over which the Pope presides as the perpetual principle and foundation of the entire Church in revealed truth. Only human canon law—that is, its concrete forms—differs among the various Eastern Catholic Churches, which are united into patriarchates, but by no means independent of the Magisterium and the ministry of unity of the Pope.

The FSSPX is not a local Church that could claim a special status. It is merely a loose association of priests and faithful who see themselves as a bulwark against the supposed errors that, in their opinion, are promoted or tolerated by Rome. From a background of theological reason of the Catholic faith, it is difficult to comprehend where they derive and claim their supervisory function over the Pope.

Rilinger: Or can you imagine that a reformed FSSPX that still deviates in some aspects from the Church’s doctrine, could nevertheless be regarded as an integral part of the Roman Catholic Church?

Cardinal Müller: According to that view, the Catholic Church would be merely a loose association of various doctrinal opinions, as in the Anglican Church, whose unity is founded solely on the will of a secular monarch. The unity of the Church refers above all to faith, together with hope and love, the seven holy sacraments, and its sacramental, episcopal constitution.

In the official teaching of the Church, there are varying degrees of binding force depending on their bearing on the central contents of Revelation or on natural truths such as freedom of conscience or every person’s unconditional right to life. The statements of social teaching are not on the same level with faith in the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, or the sacraments as means of grace. On the subject of religious freedom, a careful reading of the Vatican Decree is necessary so that differences in expression from earlier magisterial documents may be recognized not in content but in relation to changing audiences.

Anyone who wishes to remain in the unity of the Church will profess faith in Christ, the true foundation of her unity, but also in Peter, who, together with the Apostles and their teaching, is the secondary foundation of her unity and its unifying summit (vertex), as Thomas Aquinas states in his “Explanation of the Apostles’ Creed” (Article 9). One can hardly accuse the universal teacher of a lack of fidelity to the Catholic faith or suspect him of being a pioneer of modernism when, in the same passage, he says in the words of St. Augustine that the Church can neither be destroyed by external enemies nor its truth undermined by internal errors. “They shall make war against thee, but they shall not overcome thee” (cf. Jeremiah 1:19).

And that is why only the Church of Peter has always stood firm in the faith and remained free from error. For what Jesus said to Peter—according to Thomas Aquinas—applies directly to his successor as well, and that is Pope Leo XIV: “I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail.” (Lk 22:32).

Rilinger: Thank you very much for these explanations.

(Editor’s note: This kath.net interview was posted on May 27, 2026. It was translated into English for CWR by Frank Nitsche-Robinson, and is posted here with kind permission.)

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