Pope
Francis leads the Via Crucis at Rome's Colosseum
(Vatican
Radio) Pope Francis on Good Friday was scheduled to lead the traditional
torch-lit Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession at Rome’s Colosseum. The
meditations for the 14 Stations of the Cross have been written this year by
Renato Corti, Bishop Emeritus of Novara in Italy and are intended to guide
the faithful in an exercise of imagining what Jesus was thinking and feeling as
he carried the Cross along Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa.
The
theme for the meditations is the Cross as the radiant culmination of God’s
protective love and in his introduction Bishop Corti said his writings refer
constantly to the gift of our being protected by this love. He said we, in
turn, have the task of being loving protectors of all creation, of every
person, especially the poor.
Bishop
Corti explained that the meditations also consider some of those challenging
situations, which, for better or worse, are typical of our own time including
the crucified of today and those who crucify others.
At
the second station where Jesus takes up his cross, the meditations include a
prayer for the fundamental right of religious freedom using an excerpt from the
words of a modern-day martyr, Shahbaz Bhatti. He was a Catholic and the
minister for religious minorities in Pakistan who was murdered in 2011 for his
work on behalf of religious minorities.
At
the 10th station where Jesus is stripped of his garments, the meditations
underline the evil of child abuse as it looks at the appalling realities of
human trafficking, child soldiers and slave labour.
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