‘”The great lesson of Easter Day is that a Victor may be judged from a double point of view: that of the world and that of God. From the world’s point of view, Christ failed on Good Friday. From God’s point of view, Christ had won. Those who put Him to death gave Him the very chance He required; those who closed the door of the sepulcher gave Him the very door that He desired to fling open; their seeming triumph led to His greatest victory.”’
Notice the difference between your quote and what Francis said. Yours highlights the truth about the cross being the greatest victory. Francis’ quote emphasized the failure...and left it at that.
Actually Pope Francis spoke of victory; he specifically used the word success. The person who “left it at that” was the writer of the article who only included the “failure” sentence. One could do the same thing to Fulton Sheen’s sermons or even Rheinhold Niebur or virtually any other sermon ever preached on the Theology of the Cross.
Here’s a bit more of Pope Francis’ sermon:
“The cross shows us a different way of measuring success. Ours is to plant the seeds: God sees to the fruits of our labors. And if at times our efforts and works seem to fail and produce no fruit, we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus… and his life, humanly speaking, ended in failure, the failure of the cross.”