Father Mike O`Connor, USA: Ich liebe die katholische Kirche + Phenomenal Sermon: I Love the Church + Deutscher Bischof Feige: Strukturen behindern die Verkündigung des Evangeliums 

Größer könnte der Unterschied nicht. In Deutschland Bischöfe, die sich dem Zeitgeist anpassen + Am Rande des Golfs von Mexiko (Amerika) in Bay St. Louis, Missouri, ein Pfarrer Michael O`Connor, der nahezu täglich, sonntags ohnehin, mit Christus-zentrierten Predigten aufrüttelt, die ihresgleichen suchen. Als Protobeispiel sei die Predigt vom 23. August 2026 (6.153 Aufrufe) genannt: I Love, I Hate; ausgerichtet an Matthäus 16,13-20: „Ich aber sage dir: Du bist Petrus und auf diesen Felsen werde ich meine Kirche bauen. Ich werde dir die Schlüssel des Himmelreichs geben.“

„Sehr skeptisch“ gegenüber Evangelisierungs-Strategien: Es gehe nicht darum, Menschen „bewusst“ vom Evangelium überzeugen zu wollen, so der Magdeburger Bischof. Christen müssten „authentisch und diakonisch Kirche sein“.

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Auszug Transkript Father Michael O`Connnor. Welcome to Pod Apostle. Help us build the kingdom.

„Like, share, and subscribe. + I love this gospel. I love this gospel that Peter got the right answer. I love that we have a beautiful definition. I love that he got the keys to the kingdom. You know, there are a lot of things that I love in life and in the church. And sadly, there are a few things that I hate as well. I love that Jesus, the only begotten son, born of the father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, conssubstantial with the father, one with the father. I love that God has come to us in Christ Jesus and remains with us in his church. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. And for our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death. On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the scriptures. I love this. I love that Peter got the right answer. And we have the right answer today, right? who is Jesus. And then that Jesus founded a church on this profession of Peter’s faith and promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. I love the church.

You know, You know, the church is not merely a human society.

Die Kirche ist nicht bloß eine menschliche Gemeinschaft.

I love that she has the keys. I love the church enough to be heartbroken by the failures in her. I do not hate the church, the bride of Christ. I hate what sin does to the church. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Therefore, I must love his bride. And in a very real way, as a priest, I have married the church. I hear St. Paul say to me, „Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so, husbands, love your wives.“ I love the church. I love the sacred scriptures which Israel and the church wrote and preserved and copied and proclaimed and studied and protected and prayed. I love the word of God which cuts and heals and consoles and counsels and rebukes and corrects and trains. I love the saints of the church reborn from the womb of the baptism.

I love Ignatius of Antioch and his courage. Jerome and his obedience and his scholarship. I love St. Augustine and his confessions and Monica and her perseverance and Gregory and his music and Aquinus and the Suma. I love Benedict and his rule and Scholastica and her love. I love St. Katherine of Sienna and her boldness. The church of St. TZ of Lazou and her simplicity. John Paul II. and his mercy. Francis and Claire and Rose de Lima, her life of penance and climbing the ladder of the cross to heaven. I love the church of St. Maxmillian Kolbe who stepped forward as Aouchitz and said, „Take me instead.“ I love the biblical scholars, the linguists, the archaeologists, the historians. I love the church of Mother Teresa picking up dying people out of gutters. I love the martyrs. Peter crucified, Paul beheaded, Ignatius traveling to Rome to be eaten by lions. I love St. Thomas Moore for refusing to be corrupt with his government. I love the Ugandan martyrs who refused nperversion. The priests who were killed while celebrating mass. I love Stanley Rother, the first American martyr, a Oklahoma farm boy who went down to Guatemala to preach and teach. And his life was threatened and he ran away and came home. But his heart burned and he had to go back to Guatemala. And there in Guatemala, he proclaimed and he preached and he taught and he stood up boldly and he was murdered for his faith. He could have kept silence. He could have run away. But he didn’t. And I love the church of the martyrs.

I love the church because the Catholic Church, the tradition refuses to place a wedge between faith and reason. The church built schools, monasteries, preserved ancient texts, and whole libraries and translated them. I love the medieval university that arose with Catholic civilization in Paris and Bolognia and Oxford, the great cathedral schools. I love Nicholas Capernicus, a re a renaissance priest and mathematicians. I love Gregor Mendel and Augustine Frier who founded modern science of genetics. I love the church that built libraries and hospitals and orphanages and telescopes and microscopes and institutions for the poor. I love missionary schools.

I love that to the church, the truth matters and Jesus is the truth and the way and the life. I love that if every man be false, God will be true and the teachings of the church will be true.

Ich finde es wunderbar, dass für die Kirche die Wahrheit zählt und dass Jesus die Wahrheit, der Weg und das Leben ist. Ich finde es wunderbar, dass, selbst wenn alle Menschen falsch wären, Gott wahrhaftig bleibt und die Lehren der Kirche wahr sind

I love the art and the architecture and the music, the cathedral at Chartres and Notre Dame, St. Patrick’s in New York, St. Peter’s in Rome, the cyine chapel, Michelangelos’s Pieta, Fra Angelica’s the Annunciation. I love Gregorian chant and Mozart’s sacred music. I love the thousands upon thousands of little parish churches that nobody’s ever heard of that are beautiful, that ordinary people built because truth and beauty point to God. I love the sacraments.

I love the church because she baptized me and gave me rebirth. I love that she absolves sinners. I love that she anointed me a priest and that I could stand by my mom’s bed and anoint my mom. love that church jo the church joins man and woman in marriage. Above all, I love the church because she gave us the Eucharist. At some point, all the museums and universities and libraries and cathedrals will become dust. If she could given us only the Eucharist, I would still love her. 2,000 years of teaching with the keys and witness about God and man and creation and sin and grace, freedom and suffering and marriage and sexuality and death and judgment and mercy and justice, not merely isolated doctrines, but in the church a symphony of truth. That creation is good and that the fall is real and that the covenant heals and the cross redeems and the resurrection happened and grace saves and virtue is possible and life everlasting.

I love the church. her defense of human dignity. That the disabled person matters, that the prisoner matters, that the immigrant matters, that the old man with dementia matters, that the dying woman matters, that this church says the unborn child matters. Why? Because they are in the image and likeness of God. I love that the church has stood while empires have disappeared and dynasties have disappeared and ideologies have come and gone, that somewhere every morning for 2,000 years, the Christians have heard these words, „This is my body.“ I love the church because she teaches me, „I am a beloved child of God.“ I love the church because she teaches me to love the sinner and hate the sin.

There are things to hate, but the church is not one of them. But the church is at once human and divine, a visible institution of weak, sinful members, yet the mystical body animated by the Holy Spirit. Of course, I’m a member of this church, joined to the bride, and I hate my own sinfulness. I hate my cowardice. I hate my laziness. I hate the sins of the members of the body of Christ. I hate my muteness when I should speak.

I hate the silence of so many bishops and priests today and yesterday. I hate that when the gospel is clear and the moral teachings of the church are clear and unambiguous. There is silence and the silence comes from fear and the silence brings abuse and scandal. And when there is silence, there is more scandal. and the scandal, the silence becomes scandal itself. I hate that when people desperately need clarity, the shepherds mumble. I hate financial and doctrinal corruption.

I hate when children are confused about what it means to be male and female and Christians are afraid to speak. I hate it when unborn children are destroyed and Catholics holding public office and Catholic parents support policies directly against the church’s teachings. I hate it when marriage is redefined and perversion is celebrated and there is silence from pulpit or incoherent babbling. I hate that too many pulpits and chanteries almost nothing is said in the face of the gravest evil. I hate that our families have no vocations and there is a great shortage of priests and that my ministry feels fruitless at times.

I hate that another scandal brews and damages the church. I hate that I have to wonder whether bishops and priests and teacher even believe what the church teaches. Do they pro proclaim that the wages of sin is death? Do they believe it? That souls can be lost, that judgment is real? I hate the denial of truth by silence. The very truth that the martyrs died for is unspoken. B

But I do not hate the bride. I love the church. I love the church. I love the keys.

Aber ich hasse die Braut nicht. Ich liebe die Kirche. Ich liebe die Kirche. Ich liebe die Schlüssel.

Aber ich hasse hässliche Liturgie. Und ich hasse hässliche Kirchen. Und ich hasse Clown-Messen und schlechte Übersetzungen. Und ich hasse es, wenn der schwierige Teil des Wortes Gottes ausgelassen wird.

But my love for the church does not depend on whether I like a particular pope or a particular bishop or a particular pastor or a particular liturgical style. I love the church because the church is the bride of Christ founded by Jesus on the confession of Peter and given the keys to the kingdom.

The devil has a plan to divide the church to divide Christianity and the wounds of the church are a great harm to its mission in the world. The following questions are just a few that divide Christians.

What did Jesus mean when he said, „At the last supper, this is my body?“ Is baptism necessary? What does it mean to be born again? Is euthanasia a grave sin? Is baptism should we baptize babies? Did Jesus prohibit divorce and remarage? What’s the purpose of human sexuality? Is Christian homosexual marriage possible? Is artificial contraception a sin? A sin?

I love that the church has the keys and has the answers, but I hate it when we are mute and people are confused and the church shrinks. But I love that the gates of hell will not prevail against the proclamation of the church. But you know my brothers and sisters, the gates are defensive.

Die Kirche ist nicht dazu da, sich hinter ihren Mauern zu verstecken. Nein, die Pforten der Hölle werden die Kirche nicht überwältigen.

And Peter is given keys. He is given keys to unlock the gate. That the church is commissioned to go out and take captives back, to absolve, to evangelize, to heal, to teach, to proclaim liberty to captives and rescues to sinners, to invade the kingdom of darkness and bring the gospel.

I love the church. Not because every Catholic is good. Not because every priest is holy. Not because every bishop is courageous. Not because every pope has been wise. I love the church because Jesus Christ loves her. But I hate the sin that disfigures her precisely because I love her.

And when I see cowardice in the church, I must ask, where have I been a coward? When I see hypocrisy, I have to ask, where have I been a hypocrite? When I see silence, I have to ask, where have I been silent? When I see the church has failed to convert the world, I have to ask, whom have I brought to Christ?

You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell, the netherworld, [snorts] will not prevail against her. Not because Peter is perfect, not because every Christian is perfect, but because Christ is faithful.

My brothers and sisters, I love the church that Jesus founded on the rock of Peter. And I love that she has the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And I love that she has forgiven me and calls me to holiness.

Meine Brüder und Schwestern, ich liebe die Kirche, die Jesus auf dem Felsen Petri gegründet hat. Und ich liebe es, dass sie die Schlüssel zum Himmelreich besitzt.

Und ich finde es wunderbar, dass sie mir vergeben hat und mich zur Heiligkeit aufruft.

Matthäus 16. Simon Petrus antwortete: Du bist der Messias, der Sohn des lebendigen Gottes! ¹¹ 17 Jesus sagte zu ihm: Selig bist du, Simon Barjona; denn nicht Fleisch und Blut haben dir das offenbart, sondern mein Vater im Himmel. 18 Ich aber sage dir: Du bist Petrus und auf diesen Felsen werde ich meine Kirche bauen und die Mächte der Unterwelt werden sie nicht überwältigen. ¹²¹³ 19 Ich werde dir die Schlüssel des Himmelreichs geben; was du auf Erden binden wirst, das wird auch im Himmel gebunden sein, und was du auf Erden lösen wirst, das wird auch im Himmel gelöst sein

Oh Fr Michael O’Connor I wish the whole world would listen to your homlies and sermons

Thank you father Mike for a bold, truthful homily. I wish all priest were like you, even the pope at times he is silent to very important matters in the church for fear of retaliation, but we need to stand up for what Christ taught us. Please keep up your tough homilies. We all need to hear the truth. I love the fact that we share the same last name.

You can’t truly believe how BRILLIANT this Priest is , a genuine Shepherd of God !! How Blessed are you as a Parish to have this remarkable Mentor in your midst. God Bless Fr Mike and your beautiful Parish. Thank you for sharing this incredible Priest with us on the other side of the world. Blessings to you all. Please know that you’re in my prayers all the way from Australia.

Bischof Feige: „Sehr skeptisch“ gegenüber Evangelisierungs-Strategien

Es gehe nicht darum, Menschen „bewusst“ vom Evangelium überzeugen zu wollen, so der Magdeburger Bischof. + Christen müssten „authentisch und diakonisch Kirche sein“.

24.08.2026, 14:30 UhrMeldung

Der Magdeburger Bischof Gerhard Feige hält wenig von Aufrufen zur Evangelisierung, mit denen manche katholische Bischöfe auf rückläufige Kirchenmitgliedszahlen reagieren. „Ich bin sehr skeptisch gegenüber Strategien und Methoden, mit denen Menschen bewusst überzeugt werden sollen“, sagte Feige (74) der „Herder Korrespondenz“ (September-Ausgabe).

„Es geht nicht darum, Menschen das Evangelium überzustülpen.

Die heutige Zeit fordert uns heraus, möglichst authentisch und diakonisch Kirche zu sein.“

Feige wies darauf hin, dass in der Gesellschaft Entwicklungen wie die Säkularisierung, Pluralisierung, Individualisierung und Digitalisierung voranschritten. In dieser Hinsicht habe die Religionssoziologie „uns ernüchtert“. Und weiter: „Die Welt ist unheimlich komplex geworden. Methoden zur Evangelisierung scheinen mir kaum die richtige Antwort auf diese komplizierten Phänomene zu sein.“ Es wäre zwar schön, wenn die Kirche wieder mehr Mitglieder hätte, aber das sei nicht das erste Anliegen, sagte der Bischof.

„Die Aufgabe der Kirche ist es, selbstlos für die Gesellschaft da zu sein.“

Feige mahnte die katholische Kirche zugleich, den „Kairos“, den günstigen Augenblick zum Handeln, nicht zu verpassen. Dies zeige sich zum einen im Einsatz für Arme und Bedrängte. „Wachsam müssen wir auch innerhalb der Kirche sein. Den Vorwurf, wir seien zu sehr mit Strukturreformen beschäftigt, teile ich nicht“, sagte Feige und fügte hinzu: „Reformen sind notwendig.“ Sie seien Teil der Evangelisierung. „Denn manche Strukturen werden zu Hindernissen für die Verkündigung des Evangeliums, weil Menschen sich so sehr an ihnen stoßen.“

Feige ist seit 21 Jahren Bischof des Bistums Magdeburg. Seine einstige Vorstellung von der Aufgabe sei „idealer und heiler als das, worin ich in der Wirklichkeit angekommen bin“. „Es richten sich enorme Erwartungen an das Bischofsamt sowohl seitens der Kirche als auch der Gesellschaft. Zugleich wird man mit niederschmetternder Kritik konfrontiert“, berichtete Feige. „Damit hatte ich so nicht gerechnet.“ (DT/KNA)