German Novus Ordo Bishop: No Need to Evangelize the Whole World!

Says God will find other ways to get people “on the right track”…

German Novus Ordo Bishop:
No Need to Evangelize the Whole World!

There’s nothing Catholic left in him: ‘Bp.’ Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen

The state of post-Vatican II ‘Catholicism’ in Germany has never been worse than today. This is confirmed by a recent sermon delivered by Franz-Josef Overbeck (b. 1964), the ‘Catholic bishop’ of the diocese of Essen.

Some quick background: In 2021, ‘Bp.’ Overbeck, made headlines by claiming that God is present in sodomitical relationships. His auxiliary, ‘Bp.’ Ludger Schepers (b. 1953), was recently appointed commissioner for queer pastoral care by the German bishops’ conference. We might add that both Overbeck and Schepers were first appointed bishop by ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

Fast-forwarding now to the present: On Jan. 1, 2025, Mr. Overbeck preached in Essen cathedral for the liturgical feast of Mary the Mother of God (Novus Ordo calendar). The sermon is available in the original German at the diocesan web site here.

We won’t analyze the lengthy sermon in its entirety; instead, we’ll just point out some of the more obvious problems. All translations are our own.

Overbeck begins with a quotation from a Lutheran pastor on the meaning of being a Christian. The pastor in question is Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45). In Germany it is considered politically correct to esteem Bonhoeffer because he was one of the few who had the courage to oppose the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, and he paid the ultimate price for it. Of course he is to be commended for that, but that doesn’t make him into a Catholic, nor does it mean Catholics ought to look to him for theological guidance.

In his homily, Overbeck suggests that in this time of crisis for Christianity, it is necessary to return to the essence of what it means to be Christian.

A crisis it is indeed, and ‘His Excellency’ himself laments that studies now corroborate what personal experience has disclosed: that fewer and fewer people believe in God, that God no longer has meaning for them, and they live (apparently) happy and content lives without God.

In the face of such blatant apostasy — that’s the Catholic term for a complete falling away from the Faith, though Overbeck doesn’t use it — any Catholic bishop in his right mind would immediately recognize the need for renewed missionary activity so as to re-evangelize fallen-away society.

Not surprisingly, however, the Modernist Overbeck has other ideas.

Alas, his first thought is to turn to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) — not, mind you, as the cause of this mass apostasy we have been witnessing, but, of course, as providing the key to a solution inasmuch as it spoke of the need to recognize the “signs of the times” (cf. Mt 16:3) and adapt how we live the Gospel accordingly.

Instead of complaining about people having abandoned the Faith, Overbeck proposes that we dialogue with them, even to the point of “showing an interest in what alternatives they’ve found which give their lives stability and direction.” In typical post-Vatican II fashion, he encourages people to open themselves up to challenges to their Faith: “It can be greatly enriching to add questions and doubts to a firm, confident Faith.” It does not occur to him that perhaps it is precisely such an attitude that has ‘enriched’ so many people with unbelief in recent decades.

By contrast, the Catechism of the Council of Trent makes clear that genuine Faith excludes not only all doubt but also curiosity and desire for demonstration:

From what has been said it follows that he who is gifted with this heavenly knowledge of faith is free from an inquisitive curiosity. For when God commands us to believe He does not propose to us to search into His divine judgments, or inquire into their reason and cause, but demands an unchangeable faith, by which the mind rests content in the knowledge of eternal truth. And indeed, since we have the testimony of the Apostle that God is true; and every man a liar, and since it would argue arrogance and presumption to disbelieve the word of a grave and sensible man affirming anything as true, and to demand that he prove his statements by arguments or witnesses, how rash and foolish are those, who, hearing the words of God Himself, demand reasons for His heavenly and saving doctrines? Faith, therefore, must exclude not only all doubt, but all desire for demonstration.

(Catechism of the Council of Trent, Article I; underlining added.)

Returning now to Mr. Overbeck’s homily, we find that the ‘Most Reverend’ considers it important “not to give yesterday’s answers to people’s questions of today” because, so he belives, “In the present the Christian Faith is no longer understood, or only barely so, in the language and customs [Formen] of times past.” But he fails to consider that most people today were educated in the Vatican II version (distortion) of Catholicism, that very ‘Great Renewal’ and aggiornamento (‘updating’) that promised to make the Church relevant to modern man. How is it, then, that Overbeck has cause to complain about people losing the Faith because they can no longer understand the language and customs of times past? Didn’t Vatican II ‘fix’ that, in other words? Or is he saying we need yet another aggiornamento since, well, the 1960s were so long ago?

Reading the first half or so of his sermon, one clearly gets the impression that Overbeck thinks Christianity is ultimately about a natural love of neighbor — assisting others through kindness, humanitarianism, and solidarity. The concept of eternal salvation does not appear at all, not even indirectly, in the first half of the homily. It doesn’t fare too much better in the second half, but we’ll get to that.

First, on account of the changed circumstances in the face of so much apostasy, Overbeck says he wants to “encourage all of us to let go of what we can no longer hold on to.” More specifically:

We don’t have to “salvage” and “preserve” everything that we can no longer preserve with our own means and resources, or because there are no longer people who are interested in it and need it. Letting go can be liberating and free up resources to start something new.

“Something new!” If that isn’t the essence of the Vatican II religion!

The ‘bishop’ of Essen then elaborates on the ‘newness’ he wants to implement:

I am therefore convinced that our path as a church today must be different from that of times past. People who seek God today determine their attitude towards God and religion more freely and independently than people of previous generations did. Those who hear Jesus’ call to follow him today will no longer be able to draw the strength to embark on this adventure, to walk a pilgrim way of hope, from [having been instructed in] teachings, formulaic confessions and prescribed rules of life. That is why we, as a faith community, should seek above all to discover what it is that most profoundly accounts for the fascination of Jesus’ call. Jesus’ message that God’s kingdom is at hand is connected to the vision of a more just society, to the hope of loving togetherness and a life together in solidarity with our brothers and sisters. And so it is to this day that Christianity, that the Faith and the church win people over where solidarity and love are lived, where people take responsibility for each other, where there can be felt a spirit of understanding and mutual help. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it simply: being a Christian means being there for others! This expresses what it means above all to do what is right, namely to live love.

(underlining added)

And there he goes again! Christianity for Overbeck is all about being there for others. It does not occur to him that nobody needs the Roman Catholic religion if at the end of the day it’s simply about helping other people. Any atheist, any Freemason, any Zoroastrian can do that. In fact, Overbeck should ask himself why, if “living love” is what it’s all about, we should still care about “the Faith and the church win[ning] people over”. As long as everybody “lives love”, what does religious affiliation matter?

Finally, the ‘Catholic bishop’ of Essen realizes that he has a problem on his hands. He has solidly established in his hearers the impression that the religion of Jesus Christ is essentially about doing good to others, but then… of what use is a bishop? Do we really need a church hierarchy to run soup kitchens and hand out blankets to the homeless? And so Overbeck sees the need to backtrack a little:

Of course, it is clear that being a Christian is not just about charitable deeds and actions. First and foremost there is a prophecy and a promise: Our earthly life is not everything. There is more. There is life beyond death. Each and every one of us has infinite significance, and will find life even when our time on earth is over.

Although here the Modernist pseudo-bishop tries to say something spiritual about the Gospel and even briefly recalls, however obscurely, the concept of eternal salvation, he effectively neutralizes it immediately by suggesting willy-nilly that everyone will be saved — and thus there would again be no need for a church.

All of us, he claims, “will find life”. Really? Our Blessed Lord taught: “…the hour cometh, wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment” (Jn 5:28-29). And He warned explicitly: “How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Mt 7:14).

Despite his little disclaimer about life after death, it is clear that for ‘Bp.’ Overbeck, the most important thing in the Catholic religion is humanitarian activity, not the salvation of souls at risk of eternal damnation. He leaves no doubt about that a little further on in his sermon, when he drops this bombshell:

That is why I also advocate for serenity, because we do not have to evangelize [missionieren] the whole world and win it over to a particular form of church life. All people are and remain free. God will surely find ways to put even those on the right track who cannot or do not want to believe in him. Understanding and living our common Christian and church life in such a way that the Gospel is an invitation for people, but not a matter of compulsion or pressure, that is what we can do to ensure that there will continue to be places of being-Christian in the future that are accessible to everyone. At the same time, however, we leave it to the freedom of individuals to decide whether and how they want to embark on the adventure of following Jesus.

That is why the path of the church today is not one of long-term certainties, universal solutions, and unchangeable structures.

(underlining added)

Oh, the gobbledygook! What Overbeck says there is the willing surrender of the Great Commission. Only someone who has himself long abandoned the Catholic Faith could speak like that. There’s simply nothing Catholic left behind that man’s forehead. Catholicism in German has long been essentially changed into a quasi-religious humanitarianism with some spiritual sprinkles here and there, garnished with awful liturgy. Eternal salvation is barely even an afterthought for these people, and then only in the context of supposing that surely all will go to Heaven — after all, God is merciful. Indeed, that kind of a church or religion, nobody needs.

The ‘Catholic bishop’ of Essen might not think so, but proselytizing the entire world is actually a divine command given by Christ Himself:

Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. (Mt 28:19-20)

And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. (Mk 16:15-16)

We might add that Christ did not give to His Apostles the command to establish hospitals, open a string of soup kitchens, or provide assistance to the unemployed. Of course the Church ought to do these things, which are noble and important enough, but they must be subordinated to the greater and primary mission, that which pertains to the salvation of souls.

And so Overbeck has it exactly backwards. He makes the secondary primary, and the primary secondary; or rather, he relegates the primary to the status of being unimportant, inconsequential, superseded.

“God will surely find ways to put even those on the right track who cannot or do not want to believe in him” — for a man who claims to be a Roman Catholic bishop to say something so theologically inept speaks volumes. Consider not only the affront to God that lies in these words, but also the insult to the Church’s countless missionaries and martyrs, who lovingly spent themselves to obtain the free and willing conversion of unbelievers. In the case of the martyrs, they witnessed to the truth of the Gospel with their own blood, often enduring the most barbaric tortures rather than betray God and scandalize potential converts.

Back in 1910, when he suppressed the French social movement Le Sillon, Pope St. Pius X (r. 1903-1914) warned against this counterfeit gospel of a dogma-less humanitarianism, which is now more or less being advocated by ‘Bp.’ Overbeck:

We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men.

True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors.

Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body.

Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.

(Pope Pius X, Apostolic Letter Notre Charge Apostolique; underlining added.)

Does the current ‘bishop’ of Essen believe what St. Pius X wrote there? Of course not.

In Overbeck’s religion, God has been relegated to the status of psychological band-aid, whose job it is to provide strength, comfort, guidance, serenity, optimism, and consolation — oh yeah, and forgive sin. What a frightful caricature of God, the God who “is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29)! He is all-holy, all-perfect, all-just, and He demands that we strive for perfection, not mediocrity (see Mt 5:48); He requires us not to waste our talents (see Mt 25:14-30); and He demands repayment of debts until “the last farthing” (Mt 5:26).

It is always the same with these Modernists. At the end of the day, they simply do not believe. “But without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6).

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