I know of at least one... :-)
Posted on 04/22/2009 9:56:12 AM PDT by NYer
FREIBURG, Germany April 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to the chairman of the Catholic bishops' conference of Germany, the death of Jesus Christ was not a redemptive act of God to liberate human beings from the bondage of sin and open the gates of heaven. The Archbishop of Freiburg, Robert Zollitsch, known for his liberal views, publicly denied the fundamental Christian dogma of the sacrificial nature of Christ's death in a recent interview with a German television station.
Zollitsch said that Christ "did not die for the sins of the people as if God had provided a sacrificial offering, like a scapegoat."
Instead, Jesus had offered only "solidarity" with the poor and suffering. Zollitsch said "that is this great perspective, this tremendous solidarity."
The interviewer asked, "You would now no longer describe it in such a way that God gave his own son, because we humans were so sinful? You would no longer describe it like this?"
Monsignor Zollitsch responded, "No."
Archbishop Robert Zollitsch was appointed to the See of Freiburg im Breisgau in 2003 under Pope John Paul II. He is he sitting Chairman of the German Episcopal Conference, to which he was elected in 2008 and is regarded as a "liberal" in the German episcopate.
In February 2008 he said that priestly celibacy should be voluntary and that it is not "theologically necessary." Zollitsch has also said he accepts homosexual civil unions by states, but is against same-sex "marriage."
He told Meinhard Schmidt-Degenhard, the program's host, that God gave "his own son in solidarity with us unto this last death agony to show: 'So much are you worth to me, I go with you, and I am totally with you in every situation'."
"He has become involved with me out of solidarity - from free will."
Christ, he said, had "taken up what I have been blamed for, including the evil that I have caused, and also to take it back into the world of God and hence to show me the way out of sin, guilt and from death to life."
However, Article 613 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the definitive work issued by the Church explaining the dogmas and doctrines of the Catholic religion, describes the death of Christ as "both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through 'the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world', the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the 'blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins'."
The Catechism continues, "This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience."
To express concerns:
Congregation for Bishops
Giovanni Battista Re, Cardinal, Prefect
Palazzo della Congregazioni,
00193 Roma,
Piazza Pio XII, 10
Phone: 06.69.88.42.17
Fax: 06.69.88.53.03
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
William Joseph Levada, Cardinal, Prefect
Piazza del S. Uffizio,
11, 00193
Roma, Italy
Phone: 06.69.88.33.57; 06.69.88.34.13
Fax: 06.69.88.34.09
I know of at least one... :-)
The Touch of the Master’s Hand
It was battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.
“What am I bid, good people”, he cried,
“Who starts the bidding for me?”
“One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?”
“Two dollars, who makes it three?”
“Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,”
But, No,
From the room far back a gray bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as the angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said “What now am I bid for this old violin?”
As he held it aloft with its’ bow.
“One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?”
“Two thousand, Who makes it three?”
“Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone”, said he.
The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
“We just don’t understand.”
“What changed its’ worth?”
Swift came the reply.
“The Touch of the Masters Hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune
All battered with bourbon and gin
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Masters’ Hand.
Myra Brooks Welch
It appears he is taking the second position:
Zollitsch said that Christ “did not die for the sins of the people as if God had provided a sacrificial offering, like a scapegoat.”
Instead, Jesus had offered only “solidarity” with the poor and suffering. Zollitsch said “that is this great perspective, this tremendous solidarity.”
The interviewer asked, “You would now no longer describe it in such a way that God gave his own son, because we humans were so sinful? You would no longer describe it like this?”
Well there you have it. If that’s not outright heresy, I don’t know what is.
That's Calvinism or Jansenism, not Catholicism. If you follow it to its logical conclusion, you must embrace double predestination -- that those who are damned are damned because God positively wills and chooses it. (Unless of course you want to be a Universalist.)
St. Paul says this is flatly wrong when he teaches that the "wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is life on high in Christ Jesus". Damnation is earned; salvation is free. Double predestination makes both damnation and salvation "free," the only question is to which group God has assigned you.
Catholic dogma teaches that (a) all men are given grace sufficient to save their souls; (b) those who are reprobate earn their reprobation by resisting that grace; and (c) their resistance is of such severity that God sovereignly chooses to respect their decision to pursue evil rather than to overcome it. (Of course God has foreseen all of this from the foundation of the universe.)
Therefore the atonement is efficacious for all men, but effective only for the elect.
If Bishop Zollitsch is being quoted accurately, his teaching is not even compatible with the Nicene Creed he proclaims at Mass, which describes Jesus as "the only-begotten Son of the Father," "who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven ... was made man ... suffered under Pontius Pilate ... and was buried".
DUH
I must be missing something here.
O sure we are going to change the Bible based on this man’s opinion.
I would laugh; but Darwin’s evolution theory was one man’s opinion ... that did change the way many people view the world.
Let us not take this too lightly.
It is my understanding that non-members are allowed onto caucused threads provided they behave as though they were guests in the church of the caucus members. The question I asked was polite and sincere, exactly as I might ask a priest a question after witnessing a mass. I am sorry it was not taken in this way.
Were you invited?
I hope there is someone in the Vatican who speaks German.
Good one.
“Archbishop Zollitsch, this is the Holy Father. We need to talk.”
Thank you for a wonderful explanation.
Were you invited?
I was not aware of this. My apologies.
Were the Calvinists who are posting on this thread invited?
Maybe we should send him a complete set of the “Faith and Life” Series.
That’s what my kids use!
Is this mere heresy, or outright apostasy?
“Once” is “One more” than zero.
Certainly has all right liberal buzzwords: solidarity, poor, suffering, “not sinful”.
Instead, Jesus had offered only "solidarity" with the poor and suffering. Zollitsch said "that is this great perspective, this tremendous solidarity."
There is a possibility that the bishop's views are misrepresented or at least slanted by the interviewer.
There are at least three authentically Catholic ways to understand the sacrifice of Christ. We in the West are most familiar with St. Anselm's Atonement theory: Christ dies to atone, or satisfy, the offense given God by Adam. However, there is also Ransom theory where the sacrifice of Christ is seen as a direct confrontation with Satan (we don't need to go into that theory in the context of the article). And thirdly, and pertinently to the views of the bishop, there is a Pedagogical theory, according to whish Christ died to give us an example of moral living, -- if you will, in solidarity with man's suffering.
The heresy is to say that it is one and not the other. The problem is with "instead... only" part, which I reproduced in bold, but it is not a quote from the bishop. It is possible that he merely was pointing out that third view on the sacrifice is also valid, without rejecting the atonement theory altogether.
Further, as was already pointed out on this thread, the Atonement theory itself can be interpreted in a heretical way if it is intermixed with predestination of the reprobates. The Catholic teaching is that Christ did die for all men in the sense that salvation is available to all men, but it is not efficacious for sinners. So both statements, "Christ dies for all" and "Christ died for many/some" are correct statements.
If. Quite possibly, he wasn't. See my previous post.
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