Cardinal Gerhard Müller has stressed that the Christian faith is a “personal relationship” with the Triune God in communion with his Church, and has warned against letting that relationship “atrophy into a mechanical tradition, an external custom or a thoughtless routine.”     

In a homily on the distinction between ideology and faith delivered Oct. 26 in St. Peter’s Basilica to participants at the conclusion of the 13th annual Summorum Pontificum traditional procession, he observed that as believers “linked to Jesus by personal friendship, we do not behave like guards in a museum of a bygone world.”  

Instead, he added, “we move in the presence of God, before whom we must answer for our lives in thoughts, words and good works.” 

Cardinal Müller, who served as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 to 2017, delivered his homily during a short liturgical service in the basilica.  

Since 2023, and in light of Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes that placed sweeping restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass, pilgrims taking part in the annual procession have no longer been allowed to have a concluding Mass celebrated in the old rite in the basilica.   

Cardinal Müller began his homily by pointing out that the distinction between faith and ideology was something Pope Benedict XVI “repeatedly drew attention to.”  

Christianity, Cardinal Müller stressed, brings “truth and freedom, love and life” and the “universal unity of all peoples in the love of Christ.” It is not an “abstract theory” but a “relationship with a Person” who “gives us his grace to participate in the divine life.”  

“This is why we can place all our hope in him, in life and death,” said the cardinal, who is the editor of The Complete Works of Joseph Ratzinger. “The Son of God is the only Savior of the world because only God in his omnipotence can save us from suffering, sin and death,” he added. “No man, no matter how brilliant, can pull us out of the abyss of finiteness alone or even with the combined forces of all people's talents.” 

But Cardinal Müller warned of the “existential temptation” to place our trust in men instead of God, adding that “because of secularization” many believe that one can “live as if God does not exist.” This leads to worship of the “false gods of money, power and lust,” he explained, recalling that “all the atheist ideologies of our time, along with their self-proclaimed leaders, have only plunged the world into deeper misery.”  

As examples, he highlighted the fascist and communist regimes of the past, as well as “capitalist consumerism, gender and transhumanist ideology” — all of which, he said, “have transformed the world into a desert of nihilism.”  

“The 20th century was full of dictators and monsters who wanted to impose their will on the world, regardless of the happiness of millions of people,” he said. “They believed that their ideas were the salvation of the world and that the new human being should be ‘created’ in their image and likeness and ‘blessed’ according to their logic.  

“Even today,” he added, “we experience how terrorists, exploiters and unscrupulous bullies declare hatred and violence as the means to a ‘better future world.’” Today’s superpowers, the cardinal continued, “engage in ruthless geopolitics at the expense of the lives and dignity of children and adults.”  

But God “manifests his power precisely in not sacrificing others for his own interests, as the rulers of this world do, but by giving himself in his Son, who out of love took on our mortal flesh,” the cardinal said.   

This is why, in contrast to the “deadly ideologies” that seduce people with their propaganda, “Christianity is the religion of truth and freedom, love and life,” and the love that God bestows “on all of us in abundance” leads to “charity towards others is the fulfillment of human beings,” he explained.  

Cardinal Müller highlighted the “magnificent testimonies” of Christian culture, representing a “synthesis of faith and reason” and the unity between serving God and responsibility for the world, grounded in the Incarnation.  

“From Christianity proceeds a universal humanization of the world,” he stressed. “With words and deeds, Christians are called to contribute to peace between peoples.”  

The cardinal concluded by urging those present not to “build the house of your life on ideologies conceived by men, but on the rock of personal friendship with Christ in the divine virtues — faith, hope and love — to be able to say with St. Paul: ‘The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ (Galatians 2:20).” 

Cardinal Müller has been in Rome participating in this month’s Synod on Synodality as a pontifical delegate.