Here are a few short video to help people (ie your friend) have a better understanding to why Roman Catholics keep Jesus on the Cross.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches Christ Crucified. The follow videos explain how and why Catholics go to the cross for salvation.
The Cross is held in the highest reverence by Catholics because it was the instrument of our Savior’s crucifixion. It surmounts our churches and adorns our sanctuaries. We venerate it as the emblem of our salvation. “Far be it from me,” says the Apostle, [Paul] “to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”11 We do not, of course, attach any intrinsic virtue to the Cross; this would be sinful and idolatrous. Our veneration is referred to Him who died upon it.
It is also a very ancient and pious practice for the faithful to make on their person the sign of the Cross, saying at the same time: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Tertullian, who lived in the second century of the Christian era, says: “In all our actions, when we come in or go out, when we dress, when we wash, at our meals, before retiring to sleep, … we form on our foreheads the sign of the cross. These practices are not commanded by a formal law of Scripture; but tradition teaches them, custom confirms them, faith observes
them.”12 By the sign of the cross we make a profession of our faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation, and perform a most salutary act of religion…”
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