You know the old expression “kids say the darnedest things?” Well sometimes old Jesuits say the damnedest things.

Perhaps we are at the point where writing about an old Jesuit spouting heretical stuff is like writing “dog bites man,” but let’s have a go shall we?

Roger P. Lenaers SJ,(85) of the parish Vorderhornbach in the diocese is in Innsbruck spoke at a lecture in Vienna.  You know how old men tell you what they really think without the filters younger men put in place?  Well Fr. Lenaers told us what he really thinks.

He started by saying** ““modern science” have brought to light that the universe follow its own laws, is autonomous and is not directed from the outside.”

It then follows, he says, that all religion should be an “atheistic faith”  and

“What then of this modern, but also Christian image of God? It must be atheistic and, thus, contain a rejection of everything that has to do with the God-on-high. And this is no small undertaking, for the Creed and the Bible and the liturgy and the whole morality and the church history are full of God-on-high, “he says.

Yes, we must dump the Creed and the Bible and morality and Church history and liturgy in favor of some fleeting (and mostly wrong) modern conception of the universe in order appeal to people who have already rejected God.  Sounds like a plan.

Or maybe, just maybe, we could tell them the truth about a God who sent his only begotten son to show us the way and to die for our sins.  We could tell them about that.  You know, the Truth.  We could tell them the Truth.

Father concludes that he considers himself to be a “religious atheist.”  I think the rough translation on that is “fool.”

ht Eponymous Flower

**Note - All quotes computer translated.