In a scene of great symbolic force, Pope Leo XIV presided over this Good Friday’s Way of the Cross at the Colosseum in Rome, personally carrying the cross throughout the entire route, a gesture that only Saint John Paul II had performed before between 1980 and 1994.
Before about 30,000 faithful, the Pontiff led the traditional prayer of the fourteen stations in the historic Roman amphitheater, so linked to the memory of the first Christian martyrs.
The meditations, prepared by the Franciscan Francesco Patton, insisted that faith cannot be lived in an abstract way, but must be embodied in concrete reality. In a noisy, chaotic world often hostile to Christ, the text emphasized the need to live faith, hope, and charity amid the tensions of the present time.
There was also a clear denunciation of abuses of power, media indifference, and the degradation of human dignity. In the face of the temptation of glory, the meditations proposed the path of humility, visible in Jesus’ falls and in the fidelity of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross.
The celebration concluded with a prayer from the Pope, which invited Christians to live their existence as a path of ever deeper participation in the communion of love.