Cardinal Müller criticizes German bishops for pushing lay homilies
German Cardinal Gerhard Müller warned that dividing priestly duties to allow lay-led homilies reduces the priesthood to 'merely a function' in ‘a Protestant manner.’
Cardinal Müller
delivering the homily at a Mass on Sunday, November 2, 2025Maike
Hickson/LifeSiteNews
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Mon Jun 29, 2026 - 9:31 am EDT
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(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said the push for laypeople to deliver homilies at Masses stems from a denial of the “sacramental priesthood.”
In a recent essay published by kath.net, Müller criticized the German bishops for pushing lay-led homilies after the Vatican recently rejected a German bishop’s request to allow laymen and women to preach during Holy Mass.
“While devotions, catechesis, and celebrations of the Word of God may be held as separate services led by a layperson commissioned by the bishop, one must not separate the Liturgy of the Word from the Eucharistic part of the Holy Mass, having the former led by a layperson delivering the homily and the latter celebrated by an ordained priest,” Müller explained.
“The Second Vatican Council emphasized that in the Holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Word (liturgia verbi) and the Liturgy of the Eucharist (liturgia eucharistica) ‘are so closely linked that they constitute a single act of worship’ (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy 56), thus representing the unity of worship of the Triune God, who became flesh in Jesus Christ, the Divine Person of the Word. Therefore, Christ is present in the Church through the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the holy sacraments,” the former prefect of the Congregation (now Dicastery) of the Doctrine of the Faith said.
He said that the Council of Trent “taught that priests, ordained through the sacraments, are appointed by Christ as ministers of both the Word and the sacraments.”
“Justin Martyr had already stated this in his Apology: that the presider interprets the letters of the Apostles and the Gospels in his homily and then proceeds with the Eucharist, the Thanksgiving, while the deacons assist him in distributing Holy Communion.”
“The Second Vatican Council therefore emphasized the unity of the priest’s ministry in the Word of God, the sacraments, and the governance of the Church,” he continued. “Sacramental ordination configures bishops and presbyters ‘by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, in the image of Christ, the supreme and Eternal Priest, for the proclamation of the Gospel, for the pastoral care of the faithful, and for the celebration of the liturgy’ (Lumen gentium 28).”
“In accordance with the practice and teaching of the Church from the very beginning, the Dicastery for Divine Worship has affirmed that the homily in the Holy Mass is an integral part of the Holy Mass, which belongs to the presiding priest by virtue of his sacramental ordination, while he is assisted by the deacons, who share in this sacrament by virtue of their own ordination.”
“One cannot arbitrarily divide priestly powers and outsource them in a functionalist manner unless one denies the sacramental priesthood altogether in a Protestant manner, subsumes it entirely within the common priesthood of all the faithful, and reduces it to merely a function carried out on behalf of the community,” he stated.
“The German ‘perpetual protesters’ should not only reconsider their relationship to the Pope’s Petrine ministry, but also engage with the fundamentals of Catholic theology and stop driving the Church in Germany into the ground with their resentment-fueled ideologies and claims to power,” Müller concluded.
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