One of the Church's leading conservative cardinals has claimed that politicians in European countries like Germany “live in fear" of Muslims, as he issued a stark warning about the future of Christianity on the continent. 

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave the assessment in an interview with Vatican journalist Diane Montagna, during which he discussed challenges facing the Church under the new pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, as well as wider threats from both secular ideologies and the spread of Islam.

The cardinal said that Muslims were increasingly confident in asserting their religion in society, while Christians often hesitated to give public witness for fear of causing offence. 

"Muslims dominate public life, in part because politicians live in fear of them," the cardinal said, speaking about the situation in Germany. As a result, he said, Germany "already is, in many ways" a Muslim country. 

He noted that in his native Mainz, a city which was 70 per cent Catholic half a century ago, the figure had fallen to 27 per cent, with migration and secularisation eroding Catholic identity. 

Across Germany, he added, Muslim migrants were shaping public culture while Christians were reluctant even to hold Eucharistic processions.

He warned that this imbalance risked leading Europe down the same path as North Africa, once a heartland of the Catholic faith before becoming almost entirely Islamic after the seventh century.

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