The preacher of the papal household, Cardinal Cantalamessa, preaching the Good Friday homily this year. (Photo by Andreas Solaro/pool/AFP via Getty Images)
This essay by Larry Chapp is one of two duelling takes on Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa's Good Friday sermon. The other is Paul Fahey's "Cantalamessa's Talking to You" and is available here. The preacher of the papal household, Raniero Cantalamessa, had some rather pointed things to say to the Church’s pastors in his Good Friday sermon at the Vatican. He warned them against contributing to “political” divisions in the Church which arise out of some kind of “ideology” rather than from genuinely ecclesial concerns rooted in obedience to the Church’s magisterium. I have been a big fan of his through the years, benefitting greatly from his theological clarity and his ability to cut to the chase in matters spiritual. However, his words on Good Friday were anything but clear and have the tonality of a message that was a riff on a topic given to him by his boss. It certainly had the typical finger-wagging scold of Pope Francis when speaking to clerics, as well as his trademark vagueness as to just who in the heck he is addressing or even what in the heck he is actually saying. He was right in his analysis, but did not address them to the one who should have been their main subject. He was preaching to the wrong person.
