When leaders reject Christ

Some people get angry, and rightly so, against the excesses that normally dishonor popular revenge, but would we have to lament the violence and rudeness of the subordinates if their heads had not unleashed their bad instincts? When leaders reject Christ, when intellectuals mock his doctrine without ever having understood it, and when, especially among the notables who claim to be his followers, there are those who make others hate him because they misrepresent or transgress his words, would anyone be surprised that the masses do not want to believe in him,  and that they reject him in their own brutal way?

It was so the first time that Jesus was sentenced to death by the powerful. The pontiffs had convicted him, the Senate had condemned him to death and the governor had abandonned him cowardly: how dou you think his guards would have treated him? 

  Hi ha qui s'indigna, i amb raó, contra els excessos que deshonoren normalment les venjances populars, però caldria lamentar la violència i les grolleries dels subordinats si els seus caps no haguéssin desencadenat els seus mals instints? Quan els dirigents repudien Crist, quan els intel·lectuals es burlen de la seva doctrina sense mai haver-la entesa, i quan, sobretot, entre els notables que diuen ser seguidors seus, n'hi ha que el fan odiar perquè tergiverssen o trangredeixen les seves paraules, algú es podrà sorprendre que les masses ja no vulguin creure en ell i que el rebutgin, a la seva manera, que és naturalment brutal?

Ja va ser així la primera vegada que Jesús va ser condemnat a mort pels grans. Els pontífexs l'havien declarat culpable, el Senat l'havia condemnat a mort, el governador l'havia abandonat cobardament: com volieu que fos tractat pel cos de guàrdia?  



(Georges Chevrot: Dans le silence, p. 163, Bloud & Gay)