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| Jesus' Passion Is Being Manipulated By the Zenit News Service April 14, 2006 VATICAN CITY, APRIL 14, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Pontifical Household preacher warns that truth of Christ's passion and death is being subjected to media manipulation. In the presence of Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Basilica, the preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, in his Good Friday homily, quoted St. Paul. "The time is sure to come," the Capuchin said, "when people will not accept sound teaching, but their ears will be itching for anything new and they will collect themselves a whole series of teachers according to their own tastes; and then they will shut their ears to the truth and will turn to myths." "This word of Scripture -- and in a special way the reference to the itching for anything new -- is being realized in a new and impressive way in our days," lamented the pontifical preacher. "While we celebrate here the memory of the passion and death of the Savior, millions of people are seduced by the clever writing of ancient legends to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was never crucified," he noted. Father Cantalamessa mentioned a "best seller" today in the United States, "an edition of the 'Gospel of Thomas,'" presented as the gospel that "spares us the crucifixion, makes the resurrection unnecessary, and does not present us with a God named Jesus." "More profitable" "People who would never bother reading a responsible analysis of the traditions about how Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead are fascinated by the report of some 'new insight' to the effect he was not crucified or did not died, especially if the subsequent career involved running off with Mary Magdalene to India," alerted the Capuchin, quoting biblical scholar Raymond Brown. "These theories demonstrate that in relation to the passion of Jesus, despite the popular maxim, fiction is stranger than fact -- and often, intentionally or not, more profitable," continues the biblicist's quotation. "There is much talk about Judas' betrayal, without realizing that it is being repeated," said Father Cantalamessa. "Christ is being sold again, no longer to the leaders of the Sanhedrin for thirty denarii, but to editors and booksellers for billions of denarii." The Pope's preacher warned that this "speculative wave" is unbridled and, in fact, will grow "with the imminent release of a certain film." At the height of the commemoration of the Lord's Passion in the basilica, Father Cantalamessa said that such topics "would not merit being addressed in this place and on this day, but we cannot allow the silence of believers to be mistaken for embarrassment and that the good faith -- or foolishness? -- of millions of people be crassly manipulated by the media, without raising a cry of protest, not only in the name of faith, but also of common sense and healthy reason." The "fantasies" mentioned have an explanation, concluded the Pontifical Household preacher: "We are in the age of the media and the media are more interested in novelty than in truth." |