At last, here’s the full text of Father Cantalamessa’s homily. I’ve closed off discussion on the threads below, so if you like, continue it here. The full context of his words makes it even more interesting.

First, on other matters, before we get to the penance. This is a marvelous section on JEsus, with an opening paragraph that just makes you stop and think:

No less painful for the Christian believer today is the systematic rejection of Christ in the name of an objective historical research which, in certain forms, degenerates into the most subjective thing one can imagine: "photographs of the authors and of their ideals," as the Holy Father notes in the introductory pages to his new book on Jesus. We are watching a race to see who succeeds in presenting a Christ who best measures up to the man of today, stripping him of every transcendental aspect. In answer to the question of the angels, "Woman why do you weep?" Mary Magdalene, on Easter morning, says, "They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where to find him" (John 20:13). This is a reason for weeping that we can make our own.

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The mystery of how this innocuous individual ended up on the cross and became "the man who changed the world" remains to be explained. The truly sad thing is not that these things have been written (you need to invent something new if you want to continue to write books) but rather that, once published, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of these books are sold.

It seems to me that the incapacity of historico-philological research to link the Jesus of reality with the Jesus of the Gospel and ecclesiastical sources has to do with the fact that it ignores and does not concern itself with studying the dynamic of spiritual or supernatural phenomena. It would be like trying to hear a sound with your eyes or see colors with your ears.

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Fortunately, it seems that a chapter in the studies of Jesus is finally closing and the page is being turned. In a work entitled "Los albores del cristianismo" (Christianity in the Making), destined to be a watershed as his previous studies have been, James Dunn, one of the best living scholars of the New Testament, after a careful analysis of the results of the last three centuries of research, comes to the conclusion that there was no rift between the Jesus who preached and the Jesus who was preached, between the Jesus of history and of faith. This faith was not born after Easter but in the first encounters with the disciples, who became disciples precisely because they believed in him, even though at the beginning it was a fragile faith, naive about its implications.

The contrast between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history is the result of a "flight from history," before it is a "flight from faith," due to the projecting onto Jesus of the interests and ideals of the moment. Yes, Jesus is freed from the garb of ecclesiastical dogma, but only to be put into the clothing of a fashion that changes from season to season. The immense effort expended on research into the person of Christ has nevertheless not been in vain since it is precisely thanks to it that now, with all the alternative solutions explored, we are able to critically reach this conclusion.[10]

Now, to the section that made the news:

There is another weeping in the Bible that we must reflect on. The prophets speak of it. Ezekiel recounts the vision he had one day. The powerful voice of God cries out to a mysterious person "dressed in linen with an inkwell in his hand": "Go through the whole city, through all of Jerusalem, and mark a tau on the forehead of all those who sigh and weep because of all the abominations that are committed there" (Ezekiel 9:4).

This vision has had a strong impact on revelation and on the Church. That sign, the tau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, because of its cross-like form, became in the Book of Revelation the "seal of the living God" signed on the forehead of all those who are saved (Revelation 7:2 ff).

The Church has "wept and sighed" in recent times for the abominations committed in her womb by some of her own ministers and shepherds. She has paid a high price for this. She has sought to repair the damage. Strict rules have been laid down so that these abuses do not happen again. The moment has come, after the emergency, to do that which is the most important: to weep before God, to do penance, as God himself has been abused; to do penance for the offense against the body of Christ and the scandalizing of the "least of his brothers," more than for the damage and dishonor that has been brought upon us.

This is the condition for bringing good from this evil and for bringing about a reconciliation of the people with God and with its priests.

"Blow the trumpet in Zion, proclaim a fast, call a solemn assembly.… Between the porch and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say: ‘Spare, O Lord, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach with the nations ruling over them’" (Joel 2:15-17).

These words of the prophet Joel call out to us. Could we not perhaps do the same today: call a day of fasting and penance, at least at the local and national level, where the problem has been the worst, to publicly express repentance before God and solidarity with the victims, bring about the reconciliation of souls, and take up again the path of the Church, renewed in heart and in memory?

The words spoken by the Holy Father to the episcopate of a Catholic country in a recent ad limina visit give me the courage to say this. The Holy Father said that "the wounds caused by similar acts are profound, and the work to restore confidence and trust once these have been broken is urgent … In this way the Church will be strengthened and will be always more capable of bearing witness to the redemptive power of the Cross of Christ."[11]

But we must not leave this topic without a word of hope for the unfortunate brothers who have been the cause of the evil. In regard to a case of incest in the community of Corinth the Apostle declared: "Let this person be delivered up to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that in the day of the Lord his spirit may obtain salvation" (1 Corinthians 5:5). (Today we would say: Let him be subjected to human justice so that his soul might obtain salvation.) The salvation of the sinner, not his punishment, was what concerned the Apostle.

One day when I was preaching to the clergy of a diocese that suffered much because of these things, I was struck by a thought. These brothers of ours have been stripped of everything, ministry, honor, freedom, and only God knows with what effective moral responsibility in individual cases; they have become the last, the rejected.… If in this situation, touched by grace, they do penance for the evil caused, they unite their weeping to that of the Church, then the blessedness of those who mourn and weep could become their blessedness. They could be close to Christ who is the friend of the last, more than others, me included, rich with their own respectability and perhaps led, like the Pharisees, to judge those who make mistakes.

There is something, however, that these brothers must absolutely avoid doing but which some, unfortunately, are attempting to do: profiting from the clamor to take advantage even of their own guilt, giving interviews, writing memoirs, in an attempt to put the guilt on their superiors and the ecclesial community. This would reveal a truly dangerous hardness of heart.