(LifeSiteNews) — German Cardinal Gerhard Müller called out the Vatican’s drone display of Pope Francis’ face as a sign of a pagan-style “cult of personality.”

In a recent interview, Vatican correspondent Diane Montagna summarized to Müller the events of this year’s World Meeting on Human Fraternity, which closed with a concert featuring morally controversial performers, as well as huge drone displays of Francis’ face over St. Peter’s Basilica.

REMEMBERING POPE FRANCIS 🤍

A drone light show forms an image of the late Pope Francis during the “Grace for the World” concert in St. Peter’s Square as part of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity, promoting unity at the Vatican, September 13, 2025.

Courtesy: Ciro De… pic.twitter.com/tRxP3TthF1

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“This is hard to believe,” Müller said regarding the display. The cardinal thought it was first “reminiscent of antiquity’s Apotheosis” — the deification of humans — “when the Roman Senate declared the emperor a pagan deity, or of Moscow’s Red Square, where enormous images of Stalin and Lenin loomed as the new idols.”

“Yet in its final form, it evoked something different — the sense of being watched over by Big Brother,” Müller said.

“They should let Pope Francis rest,” he continued. He stressed that we are called to pray for the deceased as Christians, since we assume that they need our prayers to pass from Purgatory to Heaven. This suggests that we should not act as if Francis is a saint.

“Even canonized saints are venerated for the glory of God, and not for their posthumous fame,” he continued. “We must avoid any cult of personality, which is a pagan attitude.”

The context in which Francis’ face was displayed was a concert headlined by artists with a history of sexually explicit songs, a speech about “grace” that made no mention of Jesus Christ, and statements promoting religious indifferentism.

Francis himself was known for a litany of confusing, misleading, and even heretical and blasphemous statements that call into question whether he was leading souls to God as the pope.

“Even the image of holy popes should never be used in this manner, treating them like idols of a climate religion or humanitarian brotherhood stripped of God’s fatherhood and of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the only Redeemer of the world,” Müller said.

When Montagna quoted from Pharrell’s speech about grace during the “Grace for the World” concert, Müller clarified that grace is a “supernatural gift” that comes only from God. He warned, “We must avoid any use of Christian terms separated from their origin and end, namely, the Holy Trinity and the Word Incarnate.”

“Such messages, especially when delivered against the backdrop of St. Peter’s Basilica, lead to confusion and end in Pelagianism” — which denies the necessity of God’s grace for salvation — “or a merely horizontal humanism,” Müller said.

He questioned why a basilica of the Catholic Church is being used for events that do not believe in the necessity of the Church for salvation but view it as one of many valid spiritual paths. An event such as the “Grace for the World” concert seems “aimed more at recasting the Catholic Church as a kind of leader of the United Nations with the Pope reduced to its secularized chaplain,” than at “proclaiming the Gospel … ”