“Ecce homo,” “Behold the man!” These were the words spoken by Pontius Pilate when he presented a scourged Jesus Christ to a hostile mob shortly before his crucifixion. The same words aptly apply today to Pope Benedict XVI, as he is being held up to unprecedented ridicule and scorn by a hateful press and a world so out of touch with its spiritual nature and moral being.
One can almost hear Jesus saying to the peaceful and benevolent pope: “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first” (John 15:18).
The world wants to see the death of the church because it knows the church is the mother of all saints. It knows that the Catholic Church is the last bastion of hope against a materialistic world that craves immorality at every step including homosexuality, same-sex marriage, easy divorce, abortion, radical feminism, contraception, embryonic stem-cell research and cloning. Contrary to his critics, Benedict will be remembered not for the scandals of a few priests but for his intense suffering in protecting the faith from wolves in sheep’s clothing. He will be known as one of the greatest of Catholic martyrs.
Paul Kokoski
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada