Cardinal Gerhard Müller used a Rome conference organised by I RadicaTi dal diritto naturale alla legge to deliver a warning about the EU and the future of Europe Cardinal Gerhard Müller has warned that Europe risks losing its identity and even its future unless it rediscovers the Christian foundations upon which it was built. The former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was the principal speaker at a conference in Rome on 17 June entitled “Eurogender Diktat: Christian Roots, Religious & Educational Freedom at Risk in the EU”, organised by the newly established Catholic association I RadicaTi dal diritto naturale alla legge and hosted at the Chamber of Deputies by Massimo Milani, a member of the governing Brothers of Italy party. The event offered a sweeping critique of secularism, gender ideology, globalism and the growing ideological conformity within the European Union. The conference took place less than 24 hours after the death of Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the influential former president of the Italian bishops’ conference. His passing cast a shadow over the proceedings and was referenced repeatedly by speakers, who presented his legacy as an example of Catholic engagement in public life. Opening the conference, the association’s president, Luigi Trisolino, recalled Cardinal Ruini’s call for Catholics to remain active in politics despite their increasingly minority status in Europe. “Ruini told Catholics: even if you are now a minority in Europe, at least be a creative minority,” he said. “And that is what we will try to do together this evening.” The conference was convened to discuss the implications of recent European legislation and broader cultural developments within the EU. Speakers argued that contemporary interpretations of anti-discrimination measures risk undermining religious liberty and freedom of expression. Trisolino claimed that European institutions had increasingly embraced gender ideology, describing it as hostile to Christianity and traditional understandings of the family and human identity. He argued that recent European measures created an unequal system of protection based on identity categories and warned that criticism of progressive social policies could increasingly be treated as a form of discrimination. “Sacred religious and educational freedoms are put at risk by this illiberal EU measure,” he said, adding that those who defended Europe’s Christian roots were frequently portrayed as opponents of progress. Massimo Milani, the host of the event, whose party forms part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition, likewise argued that many of the liberties celebrated by modern European societies were rooted in Christianity. “If today we in Europe and in the West in general can talk about human rights, of personal liberties, we must remember that if this is possible it is because we live in a society, in a free culture that owes this freedom precisely to the religious principles that have informed our culture for centuries,” he said. The strongest intervention of the evening, however, came from Cardinal Müller, who delivered an extensive address examining Europe’s religious, cultural and political trajectory since the Second World War. Drawing on the thought of figures including Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, Robert Schuman, Joseph Ratzinger and Benedetto Croce, he argued that Europe’s future could not be separated from its Christian inheritance. The German cardinal argued that the architects of European integration envisaged a Europe deeply conscious of its Christian foundations. Christianity, he said, had not merely influenced European culture but had provided the moral basis upon which concepts such as human dignity, conscience, freedom and equality had developed. Europe, he argued, was not simply a political or geographical project but a civilisation shaped by Christianity. Referring to the continent’s gradual Christianisation and the formation of a common Christian culture, he said Europe had become a historical unity through a shared understanding of the human person rooted in the Gospel. “On this foundation stands today the EU,” he said, warning that without the Gospel Europe would “suicidally give itself over to its downfall”. The cardinal repeatedly returned to the theme of Christian identity, arguing that Europe’s present crisis stemmed from a deliberate attempt to sever the continent from its religious roots. Among his sharpest criticisms was the state of the family. Cardinal Müller said Europe was experiencing “the dissolution of marriage and the family and of personal identity”, presenting this as one of the defining features of the continent’s cultural crisis. He also criticised gender ideology and attempts to redefine human nature itself. Warning against transhumanist and post-human philosophies, he criticised what he called a “Jacobin-like gender transformation contra to the natural family and personal identity”. He also accused European institutions and some national governments of promoting what he termed a “gender-totalitarianism”, warning that democratic societies risked drifting towards what the nineteenth-century French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville described as a “soft despotism”. Rather than relying on overt repression, Cardinal Müller argued, such systems sought to shape public behaviour through bureaucracy, regulation and cultural pressure. He claimed this process could already be seen in parts of Europe through policies promoting gender ideology and restricting dissent from progressive orthodoxies. His Eminence’s criticism of the European Union became increasingly direct as the address progressed. He singled out the Digital Services Act and broader regulatory structures as examples of excessive bureaucratic intervention. Referring to what he called the “Orwellian fantasy” of surveillance and content regulation, he warned against allowing political institutions to assume responsibility for determining truth and falsehood in public discourse. Governments, he argued, should pursue the common good rather than claim authority over truth itself. The cardinal’s criticisms extended beyond the EU and governments to international organisations and networks that he associated with globalist thinking. Cardinal Müller referred to the “globalists of the New World Order” and criticised the influence of organisations such as the World Economic Forum and the Club of Rome. The Prefect Emeritus argued that such elites were advancing an ideological programme that marginalised Christianity while promoting secular and technocratic approaches to society. He claimed Europe was increasingly being transformed into “an experimental field for atheistic woke ideology”, in which religious belief was gradually pushed from public life and reduced to a private matter. The cardinal further expressed concern about migration, arguing that Europe faced significant cultural and demographic challenges. He claimed that large-scale immigration had been encouraged by political leaders without adequate consideration of integration or social cohesion. Throughout the address, Cardinal Müller drew heavily on the Catholic intellectual tradition, citing figures including Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, Marcello Pera, Benedetto Croce and Reinhold Niebuhr. He argued that faith and reason must work together if societies were to address the ethical challenges posed by technological developments, including artificial intelligence. Cardinal Müller also pointed to Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Lecture as guides for addressing the moral questions raised by emerging technologies. Echoing themes found in both texts, he warned that technological progress must remain subject to moral truth and the dignity of the human person. “We must not become dogs to the masters of AI,” he said, arguing that faith and reason together offered the only adequate framework for ensuring that humanity remained master of its inventions rather than their servant. Quoting Benedict XVI’s reflections on reason and faith, Cardinal Müller maintained that Europe needed a broader understanding of reason capable of engaging questions of morality, truth and human dignity rather than reducing human knowledge solely to what could be scientifically verified. He concluded by urging Europeans to recover confidence in their Christian heritage rather than abandon it. The continent’s future, he argued, depended upon recognition of natural moral law and universal human rights rooted in the dignity of every person.