Inside the ancient arena of the Roman Empire that crucified Christ, Pope Leo XIV carried the cross through the darkness of night on Good Friday at Rome's Colosseum, leading about 30,000 in prayer for the sufferings of the modern world.

Torch flames flickered against nearly 2,000-year-old stone walls as crowds packed the streets around the Colosseum, praying alongside the pope through the traditional Via Crucis on the first Good Friday of his pontificate April 3.

The 70-year-old pope carried the cross through all 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, holding it directly in front of his face for nearly two hours as he prayed for victims of war, the defense of human dignity, the despairing and the lonely.

Advertisement

It was the first time a pope had carried the cross for every station in more than three decades. According to Vatican archival research communicated by Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni April 3, St. John Paul II was the last pope to do so, carrying the cross from 1980 to 1994.

The meditations for this year's celebration were written by Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, who formerly served as custos of the Holy Land and drew on his experience walking the historical Way of the Cross through the narrow streets of Jerusalem's Old City, describing it in both Jesus' time and today as "a chaotic, distracting and noisy environment, surrounded by people who share our faith in him, but also by those who deride or insult him."

In this way, he said, the Via Crucis parallels how every Christian is called to incarnate faith, hope and charity in the real world "where the believer faces ongoing challenges and must constantly strive to imitate Jesus."

Each station included a Scripture reading, a quotation from St. Francis, a meditation by Father Patton and a short introspective litany prayer, after which the crowd prayed an Our Father in Latin and verses of the traditional "Stabat Mater" prayer.

The inclusion of quotations by St. Francis of Assisi fits with the Catholic Church's special Jubilee Year marking the 800th anniversary of the saint's death. St. Francis' reflection on redemptive suffering was among those cited, "Let all of us, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd who bore the suffering of the cross to save his sheep." Many of the quotations were drawn from St. Francis' "Admonitions," the spiritual writings he left for his brother friars before his death in 1226.

The meditation for the first station, "Jesus is condemned to death," called leaders of every kind to account, with Father Patton writing that every person in authority will answer to God in the Last Judgment for how they exercise power, including "the power to judge; the power to start or end a war; the power to instill violence or peace; the power to fuel the desire for revenge or for reconciliation; the power to use the economy to oppress people or to liberate them from misery."

Advertisement

The 10th station, "Jesus is stripped of his garments," drew a sharp connection between Christ's humiliation and contemporary violations of human dignity. The meditations cited authoritarian regimes that force prisoners to remain half-naked in bare cells, torturers who tear away not only clothing but skin and flesh, sexual abusers who reduce victims to objects and an entertainment industry that "exploits nudity for the sake of profit."

The meditation concluded with a call to conversion, "Remind us, Lord, that each time we fail to recognize the dignity of others, our own dignity is diminished."

The 11th station, "Jesus is nailed to the cross," offered a meditation on the nature of true power in the eyes of God. "You show that true power is not that of those who use force and violence to impose themselves, but that of those who are capable of taking upon themselves the evil of humanity -- ours, mine -- and destroying it with the power of love that is manifest in forgiveness," it said. "You are King and you reign from the cross: you do not resort to the supposed power of armies, but to the apparent powerlessness of love."

The litany prayers that followed each meditation gave voice to a wide range of human suffering. At the eighth station, "Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem," the crowd prayed to "weep over the devastation of war" and "for massacres and genocides." At the ninth station, the congregation asked to be made instruments of Christ "to lift up the most frail" and "to lift up those we judge as having 'brought it upon themselves.'"

Throughout the evening, prayers were offered for political prisoners, for people searching for the ultimate meaning of life, for those suffering from addiction, for children whose childhoods have been stolen, for victims of trafficking, for the poor stripped of their dignity, for migrants and refugees, for the lonely, for mothers who have lost children and for those who die alone.

When asked earlier in the week about his decision to carry the cross for all 14 stations, Pope Leo told reporters in Castel Gandolfo that he saw it as a sign the world needed.

"I think it will be an important sign because of what the pope represents, a spiritual leader today in the world, for this voice that everyone wants to hear to say that Christ still suffers, and I carry all these sufferings too in my prayer," the pope said.

Advertisement

Pope Leo extended an invitation to all people, regardless of faith. "I would like to invite all people of goodwill, all people of faith, all Christians to walk together, to walk with Christ who suffered for us to give salvation, life, and to seek how we may also be bearers of peace and not of hatred," he added.

The Colosseum has long held a special place in the Church's commemoration of Christ's passion. In 1756, Pope Benedict XIV dedicated it to the memory of the passion of Christ and the early Christian martyrs, and the Stations of the Cross were regularly observed there for roughly a century. St. John XXIII later restored the tradition to the Colosseum, with St. Paul VI making it a regular fixture of the pope's Good Friday traditions.