Sign of contradiction

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In Catholic theology, a sign of contradiction is someone who, upon manifesting holiness, is subject to extreme opposition. The term is adopted from the New Testament phrase "a sign that is spoken against", found in Luke 2:34^[1] and in Acts 28:22,^[2] where the texts refer first to Jesus Christ, and then to the early Christians. Contradiction comes from the Latin contra, "against", and dicere, "to speak".

According to Catholic tradition, a sign of contradiction points to the presence of Christ or the presence of the divine due to the union of that person or reality with God. Pope John XXIII referred to the child Jesus as "the sign of contradiction" in his speech at the opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962,^[3] and in his book entitled Sign of Contradiction (1979), Pope John Paul II writes that "sign of contradiction" might be "a distinctive definition of Christ and of his Church".^[4]