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Progressive Decline and Fall of Bishop Overbeck

 It is not the first time that a progressive with the title of Bishop has pursued such a route.

This is the Chapter on the Decline and Fall of an (Anglican) Cleric from Ronald Searle's wonderful Rake's Progress. Crises are nothing if not episcopal.


In 2012, this is Bishop Overbeck on the four marks of the Church.  These are slowly being destroyed and replaced by his beloved Synodality.  Cathcon is littered with Bishops and Cardinals who love the media more than their duties.

We are “one church”: I hope that at the end of the dialogue process we will agree on common priorities for the next few years. Four topic areas are important to me: How can we develop together a coexistence and a community that strengthens us, that supports us and that gives us strength to live our church mission together and individually? How can we credibly serve our neighbors as Catholics in the Ruhr diocese? How do we proclaim faith in Jesus Christ in a way that is attractive and appealing to people? How do we celebrate church services so that people can actually come closer to God and be touched by him? I am confident that together we can set two or three concrete goals in these four areas that we will pursue together over the next five years. 

We are a “community of saints”: (holiness) I hope that the way we engage makes it clear from which faith and inner attitude we live. We are sisters and brothers - that's why we can trust and respect each other. Of course, passion is part of the discussion - but we must never deny each other our faith and our good intentions. This is a big concern for me.

We are “Catholic”: As the Diocese of Essen, we are part of a global community. It is the strength of our church that it transcends the boundaries of language, nation or culture. However, this also makes the debate on some issues difficult because, despite all the necessary and enriching diversity, the preservation of unity must always be kept in mind. We cannot discuss all issues separately from the church as a whole. Nevertheless, I want all serious issues raised to be discussed. An honest discussion requires this openness. But at the same time we have to distinguish between which questions we can clarify for ourselves in our diocese and which topics we can discuss but do not have to decide. You can see from the calendar of events for the dialogue process that I am happy to discuss so-called “church-critical” topics.

We are “apostolic”: There is no church without people who testify to their faith – just as the apostles did. Throughout history, people have talked about what God has touched and filled them with. Maybe that's what we're missing today: the willingness to tell each other about our faith and thereby grow in our faith. If we want to shape the “Catholic future,” we as volunteers and full-time professionals must remember this and help preserve and develop our identity and motivation as believers. As a church, we are not an association or a political organization, but a community of faith and life. Dialogue is a great opportunity for all of us to rediscover this

In 2012, he was hated by the enemies of the Church for his conservative position.   One is forced to conclude that a progressive is a conservative turned inside out or that the only difference between conservatism and liberalism is the speed with which progressive opinions are adopted.

Anti-Overbeck article

Source


“Without religion there is no humanity”
Kurt Marti / May 18, 2012 First he railed against homosexuals and now it's the turn of non-religious people. Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck provokes.

Franz-Josef Overbeck has been Bishop of Essen since 2009 and military bishop of the German Bundeswehr since 2011. He is considered conservative and a loyal supporter of Pope Benedict XVI. This was evident, for example, in 2010 when he was a guest on Anne Will's ARD talk show. There he consistently represented the Vatican's stance on the issue of homosexuality: "It's a sin, we know that very clearly and unequivocally. This goes against nature. Human nature is designed for the coexistence of men and women”

The polished rhetoric leaves a lot of room for speculation

Last Friday, Catholic military bishop Overbeck took his exclusive anthropology even further. On the occasion of the soldiers' pilgrimage to Lourdes under the meaningful motto "Ave Mary - Queen of Peace" he gave a speech about religion and culture. According to Overbeck, these two phenomena are “significantly underestimated,” which is a “negative consequence of secularization and the belief that religion and thus culture can be declared a private matter.” So should religion be declared a state matter? Is the Catholic theocracy on the rise again? Overbeck is merely hinting and his polished rhetoric leaves plenty of room for speculation. Not without simultaneously declaring that “everyone is allowed to practice their religion freely.”

Overbeck denies the humanity of non-religious people

Overbeck, on the other hand, was crystal clear about the status of the religiously free. Overbeck finds the current discussions, especially with regard to Islam, “very healing” because they show one thing: “Without religion and without the lived practice of religion, there is no being human.” An outrageous and dangerous sentence. With his exclusive anthropology, the Catholic Bishop Overbeck denies the humanity of non-religious people. But anyone who is not human has no human dignity and no human rights.

So it's only logical when Overbeck says, half seriously, half as a joke: "God especially likes Catholics" and asks himself why the religiously independent "haven't already become Catholic."

Catholic shaking of the foundations of the Enlightenment

With his provocative theses, Bishop Overbeck is in line with the Vatican. He shakes the foundations of the Enlightenment and at the same time he is tame: “The end result is a democratic conviction whose concepts such as human dignity and human rights cannot be imagined without Christianity.” The criminal history of Christianity teaches that enlightened vigilance is required here.




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