(ANSA) - Vatican City, February 22 - Even the Catholic
Church is faced with Messianic temptations of power just as
Jesus was in the desert, Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday.
"Jesus found himself exposed to danger and faced with the
temptation of the evil one who offered him a Messianism far
afield from God's plan, through success and power and dominion,
and not the way of the cross," said the pontiff in a reference
to the Gospels.
The same is faced "by the Church and us believers," he
added.
According to the New Testament Book of Luke, Jesus fasted
for 40 days and nights in the wilderness, at which point the
Devil offered him all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for
his allegiance, but Christ refused.
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