Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that faithful Catholics are going through as “time of tribulation and psychological terror,” in an interview with the National Catholic Register.

In some cases Catholics are “persecuted,” the cardinal said. “Usually this has come from outside,” he continued, “but now it’s from the insider, in our countries that have old Christian traditions.”

Cardinal Müller had some blistering criticism of prelates who betray the truths of the Church. “They relativize the Catholic faith, but remain with their titles: cardinals, bishops, theology professors—but in reality they don’t believe what the Church is saying.”

The German prelate remarked that in his own native country, some orthodox bishops have been severely criticized for their handling of sex-abuse cases, while their liberal colleagues—whose offenses were often more serious—are “not criticized because they belong to this ideological group of self-secularization.”