Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht celebrated his first public Mass in the Roman rite on Sunday at the Church of the Immaculate Conception (known as the Grote Kerk) in Oss, the Netherlands. In his homily (video below), he spoke about the Gospel of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.
Cardinal Eijk recounted an example from the 1950s in the Netherlands. A priest teaching religion at a Catholic school told students that the multiplication of the loaves should not be taken literally, since such a miracle would be impossible. Instead, he explained it as a moral story: people shared the food they already had because they were inspired by Jesus’ preaching about love.
Eijk added that this kind of denial destroyed the faith of many Catholics.
He recalled that in the 1950s and 1960s the once-strong Church in the Netherlands collapsed, identifying one of the causes as poor preaching by clergy who themselves undermined belief.
According to him, the faith of once-convinced Catholics was “skillfully strangled from the pulpit and through catechesis.”
This contributed significantly to the current crisis of the Church.
Cardinal Eijk explained that for God, who created the universe out of nothing, multiplying bread is hardly difficult.
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