Pope Benedict XVI cites author C.W.F. Smith in re Jesus' Parables:

"No one would crucify a teacher who told pleasant stories to enforce prudential morality"

Pope Benedict XVI's book, Jesus of Nazareth. Large Print Edition.

Pages 350 - 351


Pope Benedict quotes an author named Jeremias regarding the modern - day watering - down of Jesus' message in His parables.

For example:

"The salient point in the parable of the unjust householder (Luke 16:1 - 8) is said to be this: wise use of the present as the condition of a happy future.

"Jeremias rightly comments as follows: We are told that the parables announce a genuine religious humanity; they are stripped of their eschatological import."*

Thus:

"Imperceptibly Jesus in transformed into an apostle of progress [Julicher, II 483], a teacher of wisdom who inculcates moral precepts and a simplified theology by means of striking metaphors and stories.

"But nothing could be less like him" (p.19).

Then, His Holiness goes on to add:

"C.W.F. Smith expresses himself even more bluntly: No one would crucify a teacher who told pleasant stories to enforce prudential morality (The Jesus of the Parables, p.17; cited in Jeremias, p. 21)."

The Pope continues:

"I recount this in such detail here because it enables us to glimpse the limits of liberal exegesis, which in its day was viewed as the ne plus ultra of scientific rigor and reliable historiography and was regarded even by Catholic exegetes with envy and admiration.

"We have already seen in conjunction with the Sermon on the Mount that the type of interpretation that makes Jesus a moralist, a teacher of an enlightened and individualistic morality, for all of its significant historical insights, remain theologically impoverished, and does not even come close to the real figure of Jesus."

*Eschatology: n. Doctrine about, or content of, the end times.

Refers also to the ultimate truth and fullness Christ brings us as the Kingdom of God in person."