Archbishop Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima, Peru, has yet to clarify remarks he made in a pre-Christmas Mass that contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church about Jesus’ death. The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that Jesus is “the true priest” whose death is “a redemptive sacrifice.” Speaking on Dec. 19, however, Castillo stated that Jesus died as “a layman,” and did so without offering a “sacrifice.”
“And Jesus doesn’t die offering the sacrifice of a holocaust, Jesus dies as a murdered layman, to which He decides not to respond with vengeance and who accepts the cross to give us a sign of life,” the archbishop said during Mass in the Lima cathedral.
“And he dies as a layman who gives hope to humanity, he dies as a human being like all of you who are present here, we too, because we can’t be priests without first being baptized lay people,” he said.
Castillo said that “lay person comes from laos, which means people. And God wanted to sanctify his people, and if we are here, it is to serve them.”
The prelate recalled that God had promised Israel that from his people “a shoot would come forth that would be the Saviour.”