Reinhard Marx (born 21 September 1953) is a German Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of Munich and Freising since 2008. Pope Benedict XVI made him a cardinal in 2010. He is a former member of the Council of Cardinals established by Pope Francis, serving from 2013 to 2023 and is a former president of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (2012 – 2018). Marx is the Grand Prior of the German Lieutenancy of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
Biography 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. 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 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. 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.
It was reported in 2020 that Marx had accumulated a large personal fortune and received a state salary as a minister of almost 14000 Euros per month. Abendzeitung, Münchner Kardinal Marx stiftet Missbrauchsopfern sein privates Vermögen, https://www.abendzeitung-muenchen.de/muenchen/muenchner-kardinal-marx-stiftet-missbrauchsopfern-sein-privates-vermoegen-art-688924, retrieved August 10th 2026
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.https://fcbayern.com/en/news/2024/01/that-was-the-memorial-service-for-franz-beckenbauer-at-the-allianz-arena, That was the memorial service for Franz Beckenbauer at the Allianz Arena, FC Bayern Munchen, retrieved January 19th 2024
Marx broke his shoulder in March 2025.https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/news-briefing-church-in-the-world-24/, The Tablet, News Briefing: Church in the World, retrieved July 16th 2025
Marx participated as a cardinal elector in the 2025 papal conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV.
On 2 February 2026, Marx opened the beatification process for Alfred Delp in Munich. https://www.erzbistum-muenchen.de/news/bistum/Seligsprechungsprozess-fuer-Pater-Alfred-Delp-SJ-wird-eroeffnet-49845.news,Seligsprechungsprozess für Pater Alfred Delp SJ wird eröffnet Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, retrieved February 17th 2026
In June 2026, Marx carried out the requiem mass for former German minister of Culture Hans Maier.„Seine Stimme und seine Klarheit werden fehlen“ – Weggefährten nehmen Abschied von Hans Maier, tz, https://www.tz.de/muenchen/stadt/obergiesing-fasangarten-ort68446/trauerfeier-fuer-ex-minister-im-dom-weggefaehrten-wuerdigen-hans-maier-94356190.html, retrieved August 10, 2026
President of the Bishops' Conference of the European Community He was elected as President of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community on 22 March 2012.
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."
Despite protests by Catholics in Germany, including the Catholic Workers Movement, Marx spoke positively of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. He said: "Given today’s huge social and environmental challenges, I won’t have a good feeling if Europe pulls out of shaping globalization and leaves the issues and actions to others".
Following the Christmas market attack in Berlin in December 2016, Marx said "The news from Berlin have deeply shocked me. The violence on the Christmas market is the opposite of what visitors were seeking. My compassion goes to the relatives of the dead and injured. For all of them I will pray."
In April 2017, Marx met with Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, and he hailed the great achievements that had been made in Europe in recent history. In a joint statement with Anglican bishop Christopher Hill, Marx said: "In the decades since the founding of the European Union and its predecessor institutions, Europeans have benefitted from historic periods of peace, the expansion of democracy on the continent, and increased freedom to work, travel, and study,' and 'We believe more than ever in the European project and believe that a common path resting on shared values is the best path, ... A united Europe brings about peace in a world where peace cannot be taken for granted."
In May 2017, the leaders of COMECE met in Rome in relation to a high-level congress to take place in Rome on the theme 'Rethinking Europe'. On the occasion, Marx stated that putting the human person back at the centre of European public policy was, along with dying to oneself, the church's message and he further stated, "I see, when I meet politicians and 'other' people, that they are open to discuss. ...We cannot [do] politics, we are not politicians ... but we can enable the way."
On 2 December 2018, Marx attended the "Pulse of Europe" meeting in Munich and made statements in favour of greater European unity. He said "Nationalism means war. Germany first? That is egotism and won’t get us any further" and "The Romanian poor and the Italian unemployed are all our problem". He also said he did not understand why no one was speaking of United States of Europe any longer.
Contribution to global Synod of Bishops Marx participated in the Synod of Bishops on the Family in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, addressing a question raised on the family, he argued that church doctrine can change over time, and "doesn't depend on the spirit of time but can develop over time. ...Saying that the doctrine will never change is a restrictive view of things," Marx later clarified at a Vatican press conference: "The core of the Catholic Church remains the Gospel, but have we discovered everything? This is what I doubt."
Marx has supported the view that no second marriage is possible within Catholic teaching, but he wanted it to be possible that people whose marriages had "failed" could still be accepted within the church. He supported Cardinal Walter Kasper's proposal that Catholics who have divorced and attempted remarriage outside the Church be admitted to Communion, emphasizing that it would be applied to individual cases: "Not for no one, and not for everyone."
Though he once suggested that the German church might go in a different direction than the Synod, Marx insisted at the 2015 Synod that he would abide by whatever the Pope decided. He said "the Church is the only institution in the world that can reach unanimous agreement. Thank God we have the pope. We bishops do not have to decide. Church unity is not in danger. And once the pope has decided, we will abide by his decision."
When several cardinals who believed that no circumstances allow for someone who had attempted remarriage to receive communion published a set of questions asking for clarifications of Amoris Laetitia, Marx objected. He said that the exhortation was not ambiguous as some said, and that it did in fact allow for people to receive the Eucharist after attempted remarriage under certain circumstances. In February 2017, Marx, when speaking of the events surrounding this controversy, stated: "We have discussions in the church, normal discussions, tensions. It will be forever like this." Marx also said he believed that support for the Pope within the church was substantial.
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