Did Pope Francis say Jesus failed?

[Timothy777]

A friend just sent me an email saying that Catholics need to be aware that the Pope is involved in false teaching:

He said that the Pope said this:
“When you don’t understand something, when desperation hits you, then look at the cross. That is the great failure of God, that is the destruction of God, and it’s a challenge to our faith”

Then this person said to me:
YES – the pope said that GOD failed at the Cross and was destroyed. This is the second time he said God failed.

NO SIR – He is resurrected and raised – has overcome death so that WE may be cleansed and made righteous through the death and shedding of Blood in order that we can spend eternal life with our Creator God – Jehovah Yahweh. That is the truth.

But don’t take it from me – take it from the Bible – the living Word of the Lord God.

I told him that he was not using common sense in understanding Pope Francis message. And he never said that God (Christ) never overcame death. He was referencing the human nature Christ and us to have faith in his human act of suffering. The Divine nature Christ did overcome death and Catholics know that fact.

Did I explain it to him correctly?
Thanks Tim

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

You have explained it correctly. Context is everything. In human terms we expect our hero to come out on top practically right away. If we had been followers of Jesus during His earthly ministry we would have been shocked and demoralized that the person we thought was the messiah was summarily executed. God did not rescue Jesus from suffering in time, God helped Jesus to triumph over suffering through the resurrection that followed, but there would have been no resurrection without the cross, and its *seeming *failure of Jesus ‘ministry, first.
Pope Francis’ message to us is that when we feel we have “failed” we must not focus on that, we must focus on staying true to our faith that while God does not take us out of suffering and failure He does always help us triumph over it.

Let us look at Pope Francis’ full words (emphasis added):

When you don’t understand something, when desperation hits you then look at the cross. That is the great failure of God, that is the destruction of God, and it’s a challenge to our faith. And this is hope, because history did not end in that failure. Rather it’s in the resurrection of Christ that renewed all of us.