Cardinal claims Jesus would be thrown in jail today for opposing LGBTQ+ rights

The Pope has taken some tepid steps towards including LGBTQ+ people in the Catholic Church recently, and some members of the church’s leadership are pushing back. One cardinal went so far as to say that Jesus would be thrown in jail today for opposing LGBTQ+ equality.

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller appeared on the British rightwing network GB News when the host asked Müller about the Pope’s recent measures towards reform, including his dismissal of far-right MAGA Bishop Joseph Strickland in Texas. Strickland constantly criticized the Pope for being too liberal on LGBTQ+ rights, divorce, and the role of women in the church. He even called the Pope a “usurper” who has “endangered souls by proclaiming that they are justified before God as they are, with no need of repentance.”

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“Jesus also contradicts ideologically [unintelligible] who want to relativize or even destroy marriage of man and woman and the family of the parents with their own children,” Müller claimed, even though there is no movement in any country to end heterosexual marriage or parenthood.

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“He said to the Pharisees who wanted to trap him, ‘Have you not read that God created man in the beginning, male and female?” Müller continued, citing Matthew 19:4, a passage about Jesus’s disapproval of heterosexual divorce.

“I believe that today Jesus would not be condemned only because he’s a messiah, but he would, in Canada, the United States, and European countries, go to prison because he spoke out the truth about marriage between a man and a woman,” Müller declared.

Like many conservative Christians, Müller apparently wants to believe that Christianity is an oppressed minority religion even though it is the dominant religion in the West and holds so much power that there has never been a U.S. president who didn’t at least claim to be Christian. No one is going to jail in the U.S. for merely holding the belief that same-sex marriage is wrong.

Müller also cited Cardinal Raymond Burke in the interview, who was evicted from his Vatican apartment last month.

Burke complained that the church has strayed from “absolute moral law” by not condemning “the plague of the homosexual agenda” forcefully enough. Burke was a leading proponent of bans on same-sex marriage nationwide. He has also been a leader in decrying the use of condoms to prevent HIV. His opposition to condoms led to his exile from the Vatican by the current pope.

Burke had intervened to have the head of a church organization fired for approving the distribution of condoms to prostitutes in Myanmar. Francis used the episode to remove Burke from his powerful post and send him to Guam as punishment.

Burke also accused Pope Francis of trying to destroy the Church from within.

Even though Burke and Strickland were the only two examples Müller brought up, neither was put in prison for their positions on LGBTQ+ rights. In fact, it’s unclear if it was even their positions on those issues — and not their constant criticism of Pope Francis — that got them kicked out of their positions in the church.