How can we explain that Jesus Christ was crucified, when his doctrine and works should have moved all to reverence him?
Jesus Christ was crucified to deal with the power of sin, which brings about spiritual slavery, as all human beings have sinned and can be called “enemies” of the thrice-holy God (Rom 5:10; see Q607). Some, however, harden themselves against God and are called his “enemies” in contrast with the righteous (Psa 68:1–3 [67 LXX]). Such hardening is a possibility for every human heart, in every people and every age; and it is this hardened will, opposing the righteous and the divine order, that brought the Lord to the Cross.
Concerning the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ: the elders and scribes hated him because he rebuked their false doctrine and evil lives, and envied him because the people, hearing his teaching and seeing his miracles, esteemed him more than them (Mat 27:18: “he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up”). For this reason, they falsely accused him and condemned him to death, as the book of Wisdom had foretold with astonishing precision, in the very chapter that reveals the devil’s envy (Wis 2:24; see Q107, Q157):
Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law… He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord… the very sight of him is a burden to us… he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture… Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected. (Wis 2:12–20; cf. Mat 27:41–43, where the mockers at the Cross unwittingly quote this very taunt)
The guilt for the Lord’s condemnation belongs to those who brought it about, not to the Jewish people as a whole, whether in his own day or in any later age. The Lord, his Mother, and his Apostles were themselves Jews, the common people heard him gladly (Mar 12:37), and his sentence was pronounced and carried out by a Roman governor and Roman soldiers. The Apostles saw in the Passion a conspiracy of Jew and Gentile alike, “Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel” (Act 4:27), so that all humanity stands together at the foot of the Cross. Even for those directly responsible the Lord prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luk 23:34), and St Peter said to the people of Jerusalem, “I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers” (Act 3:17). The cry of the crowd, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Mat 27:25), may therefore never be turned into a charge against the Jewish people as a whole, for the blood of Christ was “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mat 26:28): it cleanses and does not condemn. He suffered for the sins of all: “he was wounded for our transgressions… and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:5–6); and the Church confesses that each of us, by our sins, shares in the responsibility for his Passion.
