Symbol of God

Published on February 9, 2005

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal agency in charge of defending the Church from heresy, has issued a stern notification regarding Jesuit Fr. Roger Haight’s book, Jesus: Symbol of God, which was an attempt to “express traditional doctrines about Christ and salvation in language appropriate to post-modern culture.” The CDF’s […]

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal agency in charge of defending the Church from heresy, has issued a stern notification regarding Jesuit Fr. Roger Haight’s book, Jesus: Symbol of God, which was an attempt to “express traditional doctrines about Christ and salvation in language appropriate to post-modern culture.” The CDF’s notification prohibits Haight, a Union Theological Seminary professor, from teaching Catholic theology until “his positions have been corrected” (a largely rhetorical prohibition as Union is a non-Catholic institution). While Haight wasn’t charged with heresy, his “incorrect” positions include: challenging Church doctrine on the literal interpretation of the Holy Trinity, Jesus’ divinity and resurrection, and his existence as the Word of God prior to his human incarnation as Jesus; and suggesting that Christians shift from Christocentrism to Theocentrism. In an earlier interview with The National Catholic Reporter, Haight responded that his writing is responsible and a service to the Church, which risks losing “‘educated Catholics…if there isn’t space for an open attitude to other religions.'”

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