Just When You Think He Can't Get Worse

The recently unveiled cross carrying the life jacket of an unknown migrant, now hanging in the Vatican, raises serious questions and concerns, as the Crucifix for Christians knows only one occupant: Jesus Christ.

On December 19, 2019, Pope Francis met with 33 asylum-seekers from the Greek island of Lesbos, who were brought to Rome by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski. To mark the occasion, a cross was unveiled in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican to pay tribute to the migrants who have lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea. The cross is quite unusual, to put it mildly: the body of the cross is transparent, like water, and is encircled by an orange life jacket exactly at the place where Christ would be placed on the cross. The orange life jacket belonged to an unknown migrant who lost his or her life at sea in July 2019.

That nameless migrant, emphasized Pope Francis, was a victim of injustice. “It is injustice that rejects them and causes them to die at sea,” the pontiff said. 

It might appears as if the cross is “wearing” a migrant’s life jacket. In fact, the migrant’s life jacket occupies the place of Christ Crucified; the jacket is the substitute for Christ on the cross. The unusual cross is controversial, with some Italians wondering if this is Francis’s message for Christmas—making them feel guilty for not helping and caring enough for migrants. Is the unusual cross a tool to guilt the faithful, especially at Christmas?

It certainly raises serious questions and concerns, as the Crucifix for Christians knows only one occupant: Jesus Christ, who is the center and the summit of the Christian faith. “The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church (par. 618), and the Modern Catholic Encyclopedia (The Liturgical Press, 1994) explains that the cross is the “most solemn and significant symbol of the Christian faith…” In 2,000 years of Christian history, Christians have never had any Crucifix other than the Redemptive cross carrying the lifeless body of Christ crucified for humanity’s sins. Christ’s cross is indeed not replaceable or substitutable with any other image, because only one death on the cross is a Redemptive and Salvific Death—a death that cannot be compared to any other death or any other suffering, neither by metonymy (life jacket substituting for Christ) nor by a metaphor.