German Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck said 'we do not have to evangelize the whole world' and suggested that people can be 'happy and content' without God during a sermon on the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.
ESSEN, Germany (LifeSiteNews) — German Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck has said that “we do not have to evangelize the whole world” and that people are “happy and content” without God.
In a sermon on the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, in Essen Cathedral, Overbeck said that “we do not have to evangelize the whole world and win them over to a certain form of church life.”
“God will find ways to lead those who cannot or do not want to believe in Him onto a good path,” the bishop stated.
“Understanding and living our common Christian and church life in such a way that the Gospel is an invitation for people, but not a compulsion or pressure, is what we can do to ensure that there will continue to be places of Christianity in the future that are accessible to everyone.”
Overbeck’s statements are a blatant contradiction to the commands of Jesus Christ, who ordered the apostles to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
While it is true that the Catholic Church condemns coercion when evangelizing and people are free to accept or reject the Gospel, Catholics, and especially bishops as successors of the apostles, have a clear command to evangelize all peoples.
Moreover, his claim that God will lead people on a good path who do not want to believe him is erroneous. The Catholic Church teaches that those who willfully turn away from God and commit mortal sin without repenting will suffer eternal damnation (cf. CCC 1037).
Overbeck cited studies that purport to show that many people say they do not need God or religion and still “are happy and content and often lead a fulfilled life and are by no means selfish people.”
Catholic philosopher Sebastian Ostritsch pointed out in an article for Die Tagespost that even if it were true that people are happy and content without God, Christians must primarily be concerned with their neighbor’s eternal salvation and not superficial contentment.
“Anything else would be selfish, even unloving, because it would see in the other only an ordinary being limited to this world,” Ostritsch said.
Speaking about the conversion of Jews to the one true Catholic faith, Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, who is a Jewish convert to the Catholic faith, said that “the greatest form of antisemitism” is to deny them “the knowledge of Christ.”
Bishop Athanasius Schneider agreed with Mother Miriam, adding that Catholics have a duty to bring the Gospel to everyone and that it would be a sin against the love of neighbor to deny them the privilege of knowing the Lord.
