Pope Leo walks his first Way of the Cross | EUROtoday

As of: April 4, 2026 • 1:01 a.m

Pope Leo XIV led the Way of the Cross procession on the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday. For the primary time since 2022, a pope carried the cross himself in the course of the celebrations. There had been phrases of warning with regard to the present wars.

It’s a really particular environment: tens of 1000’s of individuals, the Colosseum in Rome brightly lit with torches and candles – as all the time when the standard Good Friday procession takes place there. In current years, all the time with out the Pope. For well being causes, Francis was now not capable of be there in particular person. But this time one thing is totally different: Pope Leo XIV will not be solely there himself – the Pope himself additionally carries the cross.

With a critical look and with out trembling, Leo XIV holds it – for all 14 stations, the whole Way of the Cross. He additionally bears all this struggling in prayer and desires to ask individuals to stroll this path collectively and to search for how we too could be ambassadors for peace, mentioned Leo upfront.

Human struggling on the middle

The Pope then opens the procession. The meditations, i.e. the texts for the procession, weren’t written by Leo himself, however by the Franciscan Friar Francesco Patton, who labored within the Middle East for a very long time. They take care of human struggling and are very political.

Already on the first station it’s remembered that each authority should give an account earlier than God of the way it makes use of the facility that has been given to it: “the power to judge, but also the power to start or end a war; the power to educate violence or peace”.

Relation to present crises and wars

This Way of the Cross is about moms who’ve to look at their kids being arrested, tortured, condemned and killed. It’s about ladies normally – who, it’s mentioned, are there the place there may be struggling or want, assist in conflict and disaster areas and supply consolation.

For centuries they’ve been crying for themselves and for his or her kids, who’re taken away and imprisoned throughout an illustration, who’re deported due to insurance policies that present no compassion, who’re shipwrecked on determined journeys of hope, who’re massacred in conflict zones, who’re worn out in extermination camps.

The connection to the crises and wars of our time is clear. Even if the tenth station is about an try and humiliate Jesus and rob him of his human dignity.

Call for charity and peace

This try can also be made continually as we speak, for instance by authoritarian regimes after they pressure prisoners to attend half-naked in a naked cell or in a courtyard. He is tortured by torturers who don’t restrict themselves to ripping off clothes, but in addition pores and skin and flesh. It is undertaken by those that order and use types of strip search and management that don’t respect human dignity. It is carried out by rapists and abusers who deal with their victims like objects.

The leisure business that shows nudity can also be criticized. Or media that exposes individuals in public. But there may be additionally no lack of options on how one can do it higher: with respect, decency, dignity – with Jesus in thoughts.

“You, the crucified King, remind us that if we want to share in your kingship, we too must learn to forgive and endure life’s difficulties peacefully for the sake of your love, for it is not the love of power that triumphs, but the power of love.”

It won’t be the final name for charity and peace this Holy Week: Pope Leo will more than likely additionally name for peace in the course of the Urbi et Orbi, the Easter blessing.