Holy Thursday: Pope washes feet of 12 young prisoners in RomeMany faithful came to St. Peter's on the evening of April 7 to commemorate the Passion of Christ on Good Friday 2023. The Pope Francis presided over the services, surrounded by cardinals. One of them, Raniero Cantalamessa, delivered the homily. The cardinal began by speaking of "the other death of God", provoked "in the sphere of culture". A death that is "ideological and not historical".
This idea finds its highest expression in the work of Nietzsche, whom Cantalamessa quoted: "Where has God gone? - he cried - I will tell you! It was we who killed him: you and I!... There was never a greater deed. All those who come after us, by virtue of this action, will belong to a higher history than any history that has existed until now."
The superman today
The death of God, the Cardinal reflected, does not lead us to nothingness, it is not God who replaces the Lord, but "man, and more precisely the 'superman'". But, in reality, this victory is nothing but a defeat, for "it will not be long before we realize that, left to himself, man is nothing".
What happens now, that we have allowed man to take over the role of the Creator? We wander spiritually as if in an infinite nothingness". The ideas once uttered by Nietzsche and prevailing today in our culture have not led to good. But the cardinal warned that "we are not allowed to judge the heart of a man that only God knows." So we cannot condemn the man, "the fruits, however, that his proclamation produced, we can and must judge." The most characteristic of these fruits is relativism, "nothing else is solid; everything is liquid, or even vaporous."
The believer
"As believers, it is our duty to show what lies behind or beneath that proclamation." We must remember that there is a truth and that the death of God did indeed take place, "for it is true, brothers and sisters: it was we, you and I, who killed Jesus of Nazareth! He died for our sins and for those of the whole world."
Cantalamessa explained the reason for mentioning all this, which is not "to convince atheists that God is not dead. The most famous among them discovered it on their own." And those who remain today will meet Christ by other means, the cardinal said, "means that the Lord will not fail to grant to those whose hearts are open to the truth."
So why talk about it? "To prevent believers, who knows, maybe just a few college students, from being drawn into this vortex of nihilism that is the true "black hole" of the spiritual universe." In order to be able to proclaim with conviction "We proclaim your death, we proclaim your resurrection Come, Lord Jesus!"
