Since Vatican II the Catholic Church has been hesitating to speak clearly of the insight at its core: that the refusal of God the Father to overpower the enemies of Christ was an emphatic rejection of the use of force to build the Kingdom announced by Jesus – the Kingdom of God.
It is time to end that hesitation. The Youth Catechism published by the Church in 2011 proves that no other explanation of the Crucifixion makes sense.
YouCat’s Confusing Question and Answer
The following question and answer occur on page 65 of YouCat, The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Q 98. Did God will the death of his only Son?”
A. The violent death of Jesus did not come about through tragic external circumstances. Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). So that we children of sin and death might have life, the Father in heaven “made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). The magnitude of the sacrifice that God the Father asked of his Son, corresponded to the magnitude of Christ’s obedience: “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27). On both sides, God’s love for men proved itself to the very end on the Cross.
Is it truly obvious to anyone that God’s love for men (and, presumably, women) is proven by the statement that Jesus’s death on the cross resulted solely from God’s will.
That this inference does not come naturally – that it is counter-intuitive – is strongly suggested by all available research on Irish young people and their generally poor understanding of what happens at Easter, the church’s central sacramental event. Even so YouCat is in use in some Irish dioceses as a reference source for faith formation – including the faith formation of adults. Question 98 (above) is not the only issue.
The Problem of Atonement. If it was solely the will of God the Father – and not any ‘tragic external circumstances’ – that caused the death of Jesus, then God the Father must also have predetermined the opposition to Jesus and the violence of the crucifixion. Why is it supposed that this theological perspective can close the distance between ourselves and God, when it is both scandalous and rendered obsolete by the most persuasive orthodox Catholic theology of the Cross? As Catholic teaching insists that God cannot will anyone to sin it can only be a mistake to allow any room for the inference that God the Father arranged or even condoned the violence of the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus.
The Kingdom of God is marginalized in YouCat, even though it was central to Jesus’ teaching. In Raymund Schwager’s dramatic theology of the Cross it was – and always is – the Father’s will – first of all – to build this Kingdom. Only peace reigns there – because all freely obey the two Great Commandments. The crucifixion followed from the rejection of that kingdom by Jesus’ enemies – so this sinful rejection was a necessary cause of the predicament that obliged Jesus to choose between overpowering his enemies and death on the cross. His choice to undergo crucifixion rather than use force was not the repayment of a debt called in by God the Father for our sins but proof that the Kingdom of God cannot emerge out of violence. In Dignitatis Humanae (1965) the church rejected the use of force to spread the faith – and this was also the belief of the early church – so why is this not a sufficient explanation for Jesus’ own refusal to use force to build his Kingdom?
The Sins of Covetousness, Envy and Pride are not identified in YouCat as the sins of Jesus’s enemies that led to his arrest, false accusation and unjust execution. Nothing could be clearer than that these sins prevented them from following Jesus themselves. Yet Neither covetousness nor pride are indexed or defined or instanced in YouCat. Envy is indexed but the explanation on page 254 confuses envy – which is directed toward a person or persons – and covetousness – a yearning for whatever the envied person possesses that the yearner cannot have without violence.
The Problem of Violence is not given central importance in YouCat even though it is central to scripture and to the dangers facing young people today. In revealing the role of covetousness, envy and pride in the opposition to Jesus the Gospel is also clearly pointing to the crucial role of those motives in all aggression. That this revelation was intended by God is indicated by the warning to Mary given by the prophet Simeon in St Luke’s Gospel: “…and a sword will pierce your soul too — so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare” (Luke 2:34-35). This is not seen in YouCat. It does see Jesus’ opposition to violence but does not link that opposition – or the will of God the Father – to Jesus’ choice of crucifixion before violence.
The name ‘Satan’ is completely missing from YouCat. In Schwager’s theology, as well as in scripture and in the Easter liturgy, Satan is identified as the generator of all aggression, via temptation, deceit and hatred. Young people need to know the meaning of this name – ‘the Accuser’ – the dark spirit behind all breaches of the 8th commandment against ‘bearing false witness’. They also need to know what it means to renounce Satan in the Easter liturgy – to reject all blaming of others for our own mistakes, and all unjust violence to save ourselves.
An imbalance in moral theology is inevitable if there is a dominant focus on the rules relating to sexual behaviour but no identification of the role played by covetousness, envy and pride in the genesis of injustice, crime, civil violence and war. How can e.g. the so-called manosphere and the new Christian imperialism be countered if this is not corrected? Many young People will sense this imbalance in YouCat and tune out.
The Resurrection is not seen by YouCat as God the Father’s peaceful response to the killing of his Son – another exercise of non-violence to overpower those who use violence against the truth, through the courageous witness of believers. That too is part of the gift of the Gospel to all faced with speaking the truth on behalf of justice. The Christian Creed is a sure passport through all hostility to the faith, all false accusation and all injustice. Believers in Jesus’ Resurrection cannot be defeated by force or the threat of death. Might, for us, will never also be Right.
Conclusion
YouCat is useful as an explainer of the church’s past mistakes – but not the answer to major questions that many young people will raise today – especially about violence and the cross and God’s part in the crucifixion of Jesus.
Dignitatis Humanae (1965) – the church’s own teaching on the principle of religious freedom – allows for an entirely different perspective – that God the Father does not and never could condone any use of violence to advance or secure the Christian truth and the Kingdom of God.
That all-important event of the death of Jesus had obviously two essential causes – the conspiracy against Jesus on the one hand, and Jesus’ obedience to God’s non-violent will on the other. God the Father did not, and could not, have willfully predetermined the first of those causes – and Christian teachers (especially) need to feel free to say that. To say that God permitted the abuse of their own freedom by Jesus’ enemies is to say something entirely different – that Christian faith can never by conveyed to anyone by the use of force.
To engage the interest of young people in the Easter story Catechists will need to see that story – and the many others in scripture on the same theme of victimisation – as a revelation of the roots of all violence in human concern for social status. Time and again, those who choose violence in scripture do so to ‘save their faces’ – i.e. to avoid losing status. That God willed Jesus to surrender to crucifixion to reveal this connection is missing from YouCat. This textbook does not even index the greatest of all sins – pride – or name the one who personifies that sin – Satan, the Accuser.
It is time to say clearly why Jesus accepted death on the Cross: to prove by his Resurrection that violence has no future – and that God’s peaceful Kingdom will come, despite all of its enemies.
(The final two paragraphs of this article were edited for clarity on Thursday 19th February 2026.)
[To read a summary of the dramatic theology of Raymund Schwager SJ, click here.]Views: 41