March 29, 2024
Vatican City. For the first time, Pope Francis personally wrote the texts for the Way of the Cross on Good Friday at the Colosseum in Rome. The theme of the meditations is “Praying with Jesus on the Way of the Cross”, as the director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, said on Tuesday,
March 26, announced. It will be about the prayer and suffering of Jesus and less about the current world situation.
During Pope Francis’ eleven-year term of office, young people, families and refugees, among others, wrote the meditations for the 14 Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. There were always current references. In 2023, a Ukrainian and a Russian designed one of the stations together.
Before Pope Francis, other popes had already prepared the meditations themselves, such as John Paul II in the Holy Year 2000. During the Way of the Cross on Good Friday 2005, a few days before the death of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, had already prepared the meditations themselves ., wrote the reflections in his former role as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.