Incidentally, this puzzling need to have Christ suffer more than anyone on earth...where in Catholic dogma is that called for? He suffered terribly, died, was resurrected and redeemed the world; I think that's enough, and it's all the church calls for.
If anything, human suffering has increased, in amount, variety and sophistication, since Jesus' time. Medical science has given us better understanding of the human anatomy, the points of pain and how the body can withstand pain--the better to make the suffering last longer.
The Jews in Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz suffered MORE than Jesus. There's no shame in admitting that. They were tortured with fear, humiliation, starvation, disease, not for a day and a half, but years. Experimental surgery was performed on them, often without anesthesia. When it was decided to kill them, they were marched off to the shower rooms in the thousands. Not just full-grown men, but women and children.
Some of these shower rooms still stand. If you look closely, there are long furrows in the ceiling walls, made by fingernails. Can you imagine the suffering of people who were in so much pain they managed to dig furrows in concrete?
And afterwards--no third-day resurrection , no ascent to godhood. Their skin was used as lamps, their hair as cloth, their fat boiled to make soap.
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