(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Gerhard Müller responded to the blasphemous statue of “Our Lady” in a Catholic cathedral in Austria that was recently destroyed by a faithful Catholic.
In a statement published by kath.net, Cardinal Müller condemned “[t]he instrumentalization of Mary for the demonstration of feminist ideologemes against the supposedly patriarchally narrow mindset in the Church[.]”
On Monday, the blasphemous and obscene sculpture that was put up by an “artist” in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Linz, Austria, was found beheaded.
“I did it first and foremost for the Mother of God!” the Catholic man who destroyed the statue told his fellow Austrian Alexander Tschugguel.
Previously, 8,000 people had signed a petition asking the diocese to remove the “pagan sculpture.”
Repeating typical feminist, pro-abortion talking points, Esther Strauss, who designed the statue, said that “this violence is an expression of the fact that there are still people who question women’s right to their own bodies.”
Sculptor Theresa Limberger, who created the statue, admitted that she purposefully depicted the Virgin Mary contrary to the Catholic faith.
“The intolerance, backwardness, and lack of enlightenment in the Catholic Church is shocking,” Limberger claimed to local news outlet Oberösterreichische Nachrichten.
Cardinal Müller, the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stressed how art should “strengthen the viewer’s faith,” encourage viewers to worship Christ, and not lead to immorality.
“Criticism of the reversal of Christian art as a means of piety into an advertisement for feminist ideology in violation of the natural sense of shame cannot be countered pseudo-enlightened with the accusation of prudery or pseudo-theologically as an outgrowth of an ultra-conservative attitude,” the German prelate stated.
He noted that the purpose of Christian and sacred art is “to express the infinite beauty of God in human works.”
“And Vatican II concludes from this very description of the nature of sacred art: ‘The Church has always rightly exercised a kind of arbitration; she has judged and decided on the works of artists which correspond to faith, piety and the reverently handed down laws and are to be regarded as suitable for the service of the sanctuary.’ (Constitution on the Liturgy 122).”