VATICAN - “Centuries after Paul, we see that the cross, and not the wisdom that opposes the cross, has triumphed. The Crucified is wisdom, because he manifests in truth who God is, that is, the power of love that goes to the point of the cross to save man.” The Pope's Catechesis from the General Audience.

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “In the encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul understood the central significance of the cross: He had understood that Jesus had died and risen for all and also for [Paul], himself. Both elements were important -- the universality: Jesus had truly died for everyone; and the subjectivity: He had died also for me. On the cross, therefore, the gratuitous and merciful love of God had been manifested.” With these words, the Holy Father began his Catechesis during the General Audience on Wednesday, October 29, dedicated to the “theology of the Cross” in Paul's preaching. “Day after day, in his new life, he experiences that salvation is 'grace,' that everything descended from the love of Christ and not from his merits, which in any case, didn't exist. The 'gospel of grace' thus became the only way to understand the cross, the criteria not only for his new existence, but also the answer for those who questioned him,” the Holy Father explained.
For Saint Paul, therefore, “the Cross has a fundamental priority in the history of humanity...because to say Cross means to say salvation as grace given to every creature. The theme of the Cross of Christ becomes an essential and primary element in the preaching of the Apostle,” Benedict XVI said, recalling the fact that Paul wishes to remind us all that “the Risen One is always the One who has been Crucified. The "scandal" and the "foolishness" of the cross are precisely in the fact that there, where there seems to be only failure, sorrow and defeat, precisely there, is all the power of the limitless love of God, because the cross is the expression of love and love is the true power that is revealed precisely in this apparent weakness...If for the Jews the reason to reject the cross is found in revelation, that is, in fidelity to the God of their fathers, for the Greeks, that is, the pagans, the criteria for judgment in opposing the cross is reason. For this latter group, in fact, the cross is blight, foolishness, literally insipience, that is, food lacking salt; therefore, more than an error, it is an insult to good sense.”
Paul himself, the Pope says, “on more than one occasion had the bitter experience of the rejection of the Christian pronouncement judged "insipid," irrelevant, not even worthy of being taken into consideration on the level of rational logic.” For the Greeks, it was unacceptable that God became man, submerging himself in all the limits of space and time. Therefore it was decidedly inconceivable to believe that a God could end up on the cross! “And we see how this Greek logic is also the common logic of our time,” Benedict XVI pointed out, reflecting on how Paul made the cross the fundamental part of his preaching, as it reveals “the power of God” which is different than human power, as it reveals His love. “Centuries after Paul, we see that the cross, and not the wisdom that opposes the cross, has triumphed. The Crucified is wisdom, because he manifests in truth who God is, that is, the power of love that goes to the point of the cross to save man. God avails of ways and instruments that to us appear at first glance as only weakness. The Crucified reveals, on one hand, the weakness of man, and on the other, the true power of God, that is, the gratuitousness of love: Precisely this gratuitousness of love is true wisdom.”
“St. Paul has experienced this even in his flesh, and he gives us testimony of this in various passages of his spiritual journey, which have become essential reference points for every disciple of Jesus. The Apostle identifies himself to such a degree with Christ that he also, even in the midst of so many trials, lives in the faith of the Son of God who loved him and gave himself up for his sins and those of everyone. This autobiographical detail of the Apostle is paradigmatic for all of us.”
Concluding his Catechesis, Benedict XVI recalled the “admirable synthesis of the theology of the cross in the Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:4-21),” and said, “St. Paul has renounced his own life, giving himself totally for the ministry of reconciliation, of the cross that is salvation for all of us. And this is what we should also know how to do: We can find our strength precisely in the humility of love and our wisdom in the weakness of renunciation to thus enter into the strength of God.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 31/10/2008)