All heartless and humanity-despising ideologies, whose terrible harvest we have experienced in the 20th century and since 1789, are based on the contempt for the person.
In a sermon, I once read the sentence: “Christ died for the noblest cause of humanity.” No, he did not die for a cause. He died for God and for people, and in that lies God’s victory and victory for man. Causes are not and will not be noble if people are killed for them. The risen one is the victory of a person, who is more than a cause; for God is indeed a person and calls to man with eternal love, so that man may also be eternal and his love may be eternal.
(Card. Joseph Ratzinger, Easter meditation, 1984)
