Vatican says five-year mandate of conservative German Cardinal Müller as head of key department won’t be renewed

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Vatican has signalled a major shake-up of its administration, with Pope Francis replacing his top theologian, a conservative German cardinal who has been at odds with the pontiff’s vision of a more inclusive church.

A brief Vatican statement said Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller’s five-year mandate as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a key department charged with defending Catholic doctrine, would not be renewed.

Müller, 69, who was appointed by the former pope, Benedict, in 2012, will be succeeded by his deputy, the archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer is tipped to succeed Mueller. Photograph: Riccardo De Luca/AP

Ladaria, a 73-year-old Spaniard, who like the Argentinian pope is a member of the Jesuit order, is said by those who know him to shun the limelight. Müller, by contrast, often appears in the media.

“They speak the same language and Ladaria is someone who is meek. He does not agitate the pope and does not threaten him,” said a priest who asked not to be named but who works in the Vatican and knows both Müller and Ladaria.

Since his election in 2013, Francis has given hope to progressives who want him to forge ahead with his vision for a more welcoming church that concentrates on mercy rather than the strict enforcement of rigid rules they see as antiquated.

Müller is one of several cardinals in the Vatican who have publicly sparred with the pope.

In 2015, he was among 13 cardinals who signed a letter to the pope complaining that a meeting of bishops discussing family issues was stacked in favour of liberals. The letter was leaked, embarrassing the signatories.

“Clearly, the pope and Cardinal Müller have not been on the same page for five years,” the priest said.

Müller has criticised parts of a 2016 papal treatise called “Amoris Laetitia” (The Joy of Love), a cornerstone document of Francis’s attempt to make the 1.2 billion-member church more inclusive.

In it, Francis called for a church that is less strict and more compassionate towards “imperfect” members, such as those who divorced and remarried, saying “no one can be condemned forever”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller does not shy away from the media. Photograph: Max Rossi/Reuters

Conservatives have concentrated their criticism on the document’s opening to Catholics who divorce and remarry in civil ceremonies without getting church annulments.



Under church law, they cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sex with their new partner, because their first marriage is still valid in the eyes of the church and they are seen to be living in sin.

In the document, the pope sided with progressives who had proposed an “internal forum” in which a priest or bishop decide jointly with the individual on a case-by-case basis if he or she can be fully reintegrated and receive communion.

After the document was published, Catholic bishops in some countries, including Germany, enacted guidelines on how priests could allow some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments.

But Müller has said there should be no exceptions, making him a hero to conservatives who have made the issue a rallying point for their opposition to Francis.