Reinhard Marx

Reinhard Marx (born 21 September 1953) is a German cardinal of the Catholic Church.

He serves as the Archbishop of Munich and Freising.

Born in Geseke, North Rhine-Westphalia, Marx was ordained to the priesthood, for the Archdiocese of Paderborn, by Archbishop Johannes Joachim Degenhardt on 2 June 1979.

He had studied in Paris alongside future fellow Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

He obtained a doctorate in theology from the University of Bochum in 1989.

On 23 July 1996, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Paderborn and Titular Bishop of Petina by Pope John Paul II.

He received his episcopal consecration on 21 September, his forty-third birthday, from Archbishop Degenhardt, with Bishops Hans Drewes and Paul Consbruch serving as co-consecrators.

On 20 December 2001 he was named Bishop of Trier, the oldest diocese in Germany.

On 30 November 2007 Pope Benedict XVI appointed Marx metropolitan archbishop of Munich and Freising, a position that Benedict held from 1977 to 1981.

On 2 February 2008, Marx was installed as Archbishop of Munich and Freising in the Munich Frauenkirche.

Pope Benedict XVI elevated Marx to the cardinalate in a consistory in 2010.

He became first Cardinal-Priest of San Corbiniano on 20 November 2010.

Marx's title is that of Saint Corbinian, who was the first bishop of Freising and of whom Marx is the successor.

Marx currently serves as head of the committee for social issues at the German Bishops' Conference.

In addition to his duties as archbishop of Munich, on 11 December 2010 Marx was named by Pope Benedict as a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education for a five-year renewable term.

On 29 December 2010 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

On 7 March 2012, he was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

On 22 March 2012, the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community elected him its president.

He was elected as President of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community on 22 March 2012.

He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis.

On 13 April 2013 he was appointed to a Council of Cardinal Advisers, a group established by Pope Francis, exactly a month after his election, to advise him and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus.

On the question whether the Church should allow people who have divorced and attempted remarriage to partake in Holy Communion, it came to disagreements with Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the head of the Congregation of the Faith at the Vatican, in November 2013.

Marx called for a wide debate on the treatment of the Catholic Church with those who have attempted remarriage.

When the Vatican suspended Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst in 2013 over his alleged lavish spending, Marx was also criticized as he spent around $11 million renovating the archbishop's residence and another $13 million for a guesthouse in Rome.

On 19 February 2014 he was confirmed as a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches until the end of his current five-year term.

On 12 March 2014 Marx was also elected chairman of the German Bishops' Conference as successor of Robert Zollitsch.

He was elected in Münster by the German bishops and auxiliary bishops only in the fifth round of voting in which a simple majority is sufficient.

After Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, Marx issued a statement saying: "This decision of the British voters should of course be respected, even if we, as COMECE, find it extremely regrettable."

He praised the EU's "project of community and solidarity" but also stated: "We need to 'rethink' Europe in some way. ... we will only be able to build a good future if the nations of Europe are united. It also raises the question on the way to achieve the 'true European humanism' to which Pope Francis has encouraged the Europeans."

He served in this capacity until his replacement Georg Bätzing was elected on 3 March 2020.

On 15 October 2020, Pope Francis renewed Marx's term on the Council of Cardinal Advisers.

In May 2021, Marx offered his resignation as archbishop of Munich to Pope Francis, citing his responsibility for the response to the sexual abuse crisis.

On 10 June 2021, the pope declined his resignation.

He accepted Marx's description of clerical abuse as a "catastrophe" that requires every bishop to engage with it personally, to "put their own flesh on the line".

He wrote: "We will not be saved by investigations or the power of institutions. The prestige of our Church which tends to conceal her sins will not save us; neither the power of money nor the opinion of the media will save us."

Instead he proposed all "confess our nakedness" and admit to sin and ask for "the grace of shame".

He compared Marx's statement to Peter's confession to Christ: "Turn away from me for I am a sinful man" and countered with Christ's exhortation to Peter: "Feed my sheep."

In March 2023, Cardinal Marx was removed from Pope Francis's council of cardinals.

On 20 May 2023, Marx presided over the marriage of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach and his bride Sophie-Alexandra Evekink in Munich.

On January 19 2024, Marx gave the prayer during the memorial for late German football star Franz Beckenbauer.