Bishop Schneider targets Vatican II with one of many statements about Christian anthropology.
First, one might legitimately claim that man is the center of creation. Adam names the animals and he is explicitly given dominion over what God has made. Within the hierarchy of being, he may be below the angels but he is above the rocks, plants and animals.
Second, even his status vis-à-vis the angels will be adjusted given that the eternal Word will take flesh and enter the human family. This is important because God or the eternal Word is also at the center of all things, the very plan for all creation. Well, you cannot have two centers so they become one in Jesus Christ.
Third, while the words “image” and “likeness” are sometimes used as synonyms, I favor the distinction of the former (image) pointing to our common human nature (although fallen) and the latter (likeness) referencing our supernatural and spiritual transformation through grace. The restoration in Christ builds upon and perfects our humanity. We are remade more than we were before. A fallen and estranged humanity is healed and brought back home to the Father. While creatures, we are divinized by grace.
Fourth, I suspect what the good bishop means to communicate when he says that man is not made for his own sake is that we are not our own. We have been made for God. God made us as the one material creature that could truly know him and enter into a relationship of love with him. We hear echoes of the children’s catechism . . . “to know him, to love him, to serve him and to give him glory here on earth and forever in heaven.” God has created us (with self-reflective awareness) to know him and to love him back in return. That grants us a unique place in the material created order.
The universal catechism goes on to relate that everything is created for man (humanity is the steward of creation) and that the mystery of mankind only becomes clear in the mystery of the incarnate Word. Reflecting Pope John Paul’s teaching on human solidarity and love, the catechism relates that it is readily assumed that in our common humanity we are all brothers and sisters.
The universal catechism elaborates in CCC #356 and #357:
CCC 356 – “Of all visible creatures only man is ‘able to know and love his creator’ (GS 12 � 3). He is ‘the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake,’ (GS 24 � 3) and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity: ‘What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good’” (St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogue 4,13 “On Divine Providence”: LH, Sunday, week 19, OR).
CCC 357 – “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.”
We read in the Vatican II document: “Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one. . . as we are one’ (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself (Cf. 2 Cor. 5:15).”
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