Liberal newspaper offers Jesuits a platform for gospel teaching

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The essentially secular “woke-left” media seem to be aligning their flags with the wind blowing from a different direction. But it’s the same old story, just another chapter. A hint is when a Jesuit is given a platform to explain the gospel.

Changed wind direction

The wind has since changed. What was portrayed as totally “evil” just a short time ago is now handled with kid gloves. The relevant media in Germany and their strict black-and-white, or left-and-right, thinking already form various intersections. An article from Axel Springer SE actually appeared, in which, as an opinion piece, reference was made to the memorial service held in Glendale, Arizona, for Charlie Kirk, who was murdered on September 10, 2025. “Better Jesus than Sharia,” was the title. (Source).

“Who would have thought?” some might ask. But anyone familiar with the games according to Hegel, including the construction of frightening, threatening scenarios, might even have expected such an option.

Fear is an ace up your sleeve

Who wants to subject themselves to Sharia law, a theocracy based on Islam? This has already been debated in London, and there are countries in the European Union where, just years ago, Islam was declared a “natural” part of the world. Better to follow the rules of the Bible, after all, the “West” is traditionally Christian. Thus, the funeral service for Charlie Kirk, however artificial many details may seem, certainly served as a model for what “Western Christianity” could look like. Others simply choose the “lesser evil.”

Funded information

Any newspaper article about a particular narrative, repeated in a mantra-like manner, seems particularly smug, considering that millions of euro in “industry subsidies” from taxpayers’ money have been channeled into the editorial offices. A large portion of the readership had long since left, and revenues have plummeted accordingly. After all, €220 million flowed to newspaper publishers in 2020 to promote “media diversity and distribution.” (Source).

A Jesuit dedicates himself to the funeral of Charlie Kirk

“Die Zeit” published an article that also addressed the memorial service for Charlie Kirk. However, it was not praised highly, but denounced as a misuse of the “Lord’s name.”(Source). It is surprising that the secular newspaper even considers this a relevant topic.

Far less surprising, however, is that the author of this article is Klaus Mertes. A Jesuit. An avowed advocate of the “spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola,” a columnist for many years, including for the very “left-woke” Berlin newspaper “Tagesspiegel,” and the author of several books. Whether this order also maintains a team of ghostwriters is at least worth asking.

In his article, Mertes details the abuse that took place at the memorial service and the actual state of the Gospel statements. Let me just preface this: explained by a Jesuit, of all people.

The first sentence, the first problem

The Jesuit introduces his contribution by quoting one of God’s commandments: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7; KJV). This already presents a first, Roman Catholic problem. The author refers to this as the Second Commandment.

But in the sequence, this is the third “You shall…”, thus the Third Commandment. The actual Second Commandment, the prohibition of veneration and worship of images and figures, has been lost in the Roman Catholic Church in their Catechism as an appendix to the First Commandment (Info).

Except Erika “only hate”

However, one is inclined to agree with the author when he describes the rhetoric of prominent politicians such as Trump, Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, and Miller as a display of arrogance and self-aggrandizement intended to confuse the gospel and nationalism. Erika Kirk, the widow of the murdered Charlie Kirk, caused a brief flare-up within the event with her public announcement of forgiveness for the perpetrator, but all that was heard from the US President, in contrast, was hate speech.

A pivotal moment was when Trump emphasized his hatred toward his enemies and subsequently embraced Erika Kirk. This, according to the author, was the message of the assault on Erika’s message and the degradation of the gospel “under the spirit of hatred.” An image of “maximum confusion” that will be remembered.

This was an abuse that made “everything right wrong.” This is a characteristic that is generally inherent in the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. This movement distorts anything that smacks of piety. There is no sentence left in the Gospel that can be protected against such appropriation, the Jesuit said.

Blame others but do it yourself

The “brother” of the Loyola Order then explains what the Gospel actually contains, at least from his perspective. To do this, one must understand the “DNA” of Christianity. According to 1 Corinthians, the fundamental tenet for the early Christians was that they proclaimed a crucified Messiah. The author is obviously referring to 1 Corinthians 1:18, which he only quotes the first half of. The full verse reads:
“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.“

This verse states that the Messiah, the Anointed One and King, has no power. Therefore, it cannot be about power at all, but about something else. This, despite the fact that Christianity itself has “repeatedly paid homage to the cult of power.” At the same time, Christianity also recognizes in the Crucified One a “powerful objection to the cult of power.” The idea of ​​a “saving ruler” was shattered with the powerlessness of the Crucified One as the prefiguration of the “entire Christian faith,” as it is portrayed in the second Psalm, “smashed with an iron club, like clay jars shattered.”

But the Gospel

The Jesuit author clearly meant Psalm 2:9:
“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.“. Written by King David, a prophetic type of Jesus Christ.
The Jesuit uses precisely the “stylistic device” he accuses the “national Christians” of using at the funeral. He places individual statements in their own context, ignoring the far more extensive, actual context.

Psalm 2:7-8, the verses immediately preceding it, say something important about this:
“I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.“

What does it mean, “Today I have begotten you?” The answer can be found in Acts 13:32-33:
“And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

and in Hebrews 5:5:
“So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee.“

The DNA of the Roman Church

First, it becomes clear here that this is by no means the (still) crucified Jesus Christ, but the risen(!) Jesus Christ. And that He, alive and well, has been appointed as the High Priest of us all in the Heavenly Sanctuary (Info). There can be no talk of a “powerless crucified” here at all.

The DNA the Jesuit speaks of is in fact not the DNA of Christianity, but that of the Roman Catholic Church and its claim to power in its self-defined priesthood. For, as the “holy” Church teacher Alphonsus Liguori himself describes, in the understanding of this Church, Jesus Christ did not die to forgive sins, but to establish the priesthood of the Church (Info). Of course, this cannot be a living Jesus Christ, but rather a constantly crucified and thus permanently dead Jesus Christ.

Didn’t recognize your own “club”?

Who is actually to be “shattered like clay vessels with an iron club,” and by whom, is explained in John’s fourth letter to the church of Thyatira, Revelation 2:26-27:
“And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as clay vessels are broken, just as I also received from my Father.“

Piquant: The church of Thyatira, in which the pagan, self-proclaimed prophetess Jezebel plays a role, is a type of the Roman Catholic Church, full of immorality and idolatry (Info).

Peace – Human Family

As was to be expected, the Jesuit author also addressed the unification of peaceful peoples into one human family, thanks to the Roman Church. The fruit of confession of the Crucified One, according to the author, was the newly formed community “called the Church,” a “peace” between the peoples. To this end, the author draws on statements in the letters to the churches of Ephesus and Galatia. The dividing wall of hostility between Jews and non-Jews has been torn down, and now all are one in Christ. The Church is the sum of overcoming the hostility between peoples within a social entity.

One “small thing” must be emphasized in this context. The tearing down of the walls between Jews and non-Jews presupposed something, namely, as described in Ephesians 2:13:
“But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.“

Which and whose peace?

What kind of peace is this? Ephesians 2:15-16 explains this:
“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:“

Peace between nations? No! It’s about the enmity between (sinful) man and the laws of Moses (ceremonial laws) imposed for this purpose. While the Ten Commandments of God define sin (eternally valid), the “commandments in statutes” were added BECAUSE sin was committed (Info).

These statutes (sacrificial services, ceremonies) were the shadow of the ministry of Jesus Christ, were fulfilled by Him, and thus removed. This act of (possible) reconciliation applies to Jews as well as non-Jews, whereas the statutes applied only to the people of Israel. Now there is no longer any distinction.

Jesus himself explained it

By no means is peace being spoken of in the sense of conflicts between nations. Regarding “peace on earth,” Jesus Christ had a clear statement about it, Matthew 10:34-36:
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.“

Flashes of self-awareness and remorse?

After all, it was thought, the Jesuit author admits that the Church has repeatedly succumbed to the danger of “self-sacralization or even self-nationalization” throughout history. Well, this explanation could also be adequately presented by declaring a nuclear explosion to be a harmless firecracker.

In other words, the tyranny of the Church of Rome, which enslaved humanity for many centuries, in its self-defined quality of divinity and infallibility on earth, is no longer the case today. That may be true. But that refers only to its approach, not to its self-image and the goals it sets.

Leaving the “authoritarian style” behind

In February 2023, the Jesuit author’s colleagues declared this on the occasion of Francis’s 10th pontificate. The Church’s former “authoritarian style” had given way, yet Francis had returned the Church to its “true power” (Info).

Jesus Christ warned of this emphatically and repeatedly. Against the deception in the end times (Info).

A joke to finish

The author’s final words would actually be a joke if they weren’t so embarrassing coming from a member of the Jesuit order, whose primary mission is to destroy Protestantism and return the Church of Rome to its original zenith of power:
“The misuse of God’s name, on the other hand, is based on a reading of the Gospel in the spirit of self-exaltation. The flip side of this is always the humiliation of others.“

Babylon and her poisoned wine. Then as now. “Clever guys” have always had an easy time presenting their misleading ideas in a beautiful package to a people completely uninterested in the truth.

Bible verses from King James Version (1611)