Cardinal Cantalamessa: God is not dead. His death brings us true life

At the Good Friday liturgy of the Passion of the Lord at St. Peter's Basilica, the Preacher of the Papal Household, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, reflects on the Death and Resurrection of the Lord in our secularized societies.

Carinal Raniero Cantalamessa during his Homily

By Lisa Zengarini

Before the Way of the Cross in the Colosseum on Friday evening, His Holiness Pope Francis presided over the liturgy of the Passion of the Lord at St. Peter's Basilica, commemorating the last hours of Jesus' life.

“Death of God” - Reinterpreting Nietzsche

The Homily was pronounced by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap., the Preacher of the Papal Household, who focused his reflection on the ideological “Death of God” the modern secularized Western world has been experiencing for over a century, and which found its fullest expression in the famous words Friedrich Nietzsche put in the mouth of the "madman" in his “The Joyful Science”.

"Super-man" and modern nihilism

The idea behind that proclamation was not to replace God with nothing, but with a "Super-man", as the German philosopher expressed in another famous writing, “Ecce Homo”. 

However, Cardinal Cantalamessa remarked, it has indeed led to modern-time nihilism, “beyond good and evil”, another battle-cry of Nietzsche, which is nothing else but “the will to power" we are dramatically witnessing today.

"It is significant that, precisely in the wake of Nietzsche’s thought, some have come to define human existence as a 'being-for-death' and to consider all the supposed human possibilities as 'nullities from the start'," he said.

Nihilism and relativism 

Although it is “not up to us to judge” the German philosopher who “had his share of suffering in his life” and whose “heart only God knows”, continued Cardinal Cantalamessa, we “can and must judge” the consequences that his thought has had in our world, and whose common denominator “is a total relativism in every field – ethics, language, philosophy, art, and, of course, religion”.

This report was originally published on the Vatican News website. Please click here to read the full text.