Article 4. "Jesus Christ Suffered Under Pontius Pilate, Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried"

The Paschal mystery of Christ’s cross and Resurrection stands at the center of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world. God’s saving plan was accomplished “once for all”1 by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ.

The Church remains faithful to the interpretation of “all the Scriptures” that Jesus gave both before and after his Passover: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”2 Jesus’ sufferings took their historical, concrete form from the fact that he was “rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes”, who handed “him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified”.3

Faith can therefore try to examine the circumstances of Jesus’ death, faithfully handed on by the Gospels4 and illuminated by other historical sources, the better to understand the meaning of the Redemption.