Judas, Betrayal, and Following Jesus

A fascinating point by Pope Benedict XVI.  Excerpts:

“Judas could have left as many disciples did,” the pontiff explained. “Indeed, he should have left had he been honest. Instead, he stayed with Jesus, not out faith, nor out of love, but with the secret desire of taking revenge against the Master. Why? Because Judas felt betrayed by Jesus, and decided in turn to betray him.
Judas was a Zealot; he wanted a winning Messiah, one who would lead a revolt against the Romans. However, Jesus did not live up these expectations. The problem is that Judas did not leave, and his fault is that of falsehood, which is the mark of the devil. For this reason, Jesus told the Twelve: “Yet is not one of you a devil?” (John, 6:70).

And fascinating commentary by Mark Shea. Excerpts:

...the biblical account (and Benedict’s) suggests that Judas is damned because he is damnable: a vindictive, bitter man whose will to stay and punish Jesus for disappointing him is a kind of hellish parody of Peter’s faith. 

Do such people exist?  You know they do.  The feminist scholar Mary Daly promoting goddess worship and hatred of the faith at a Catholic college out of pure spite instead of leaving.  John Dominic Crossan using his Catholic credentials to teach that Jesus’ corpse was eaten by wild dogs.  There are people who leave the Church because they hate it.  There are also people who stay in the Church because they hate it more deeply still and wish to do whatever they can, from within, to hurt it in its vital organs.  Judas “looked for an opportunity to hand him over”.  Unlike the movie Judas, that’s not because he was a clueless git who had no idea what would happen to Jesus once his enemies got ahold of him.  It’s because he knew perfectly well.

Of course, as is often the case, the vengeance tasted like ashes in his mouth and he felt remorse about betraying innocent blood...