“I’m sorry Sister, but what’s all this about?”, asks a woman in broken English. “It’s
a about a man called Jesus”, replies the young nun quietly. “And why are all the
women crying?” persists the lady, “because an innocent man has been crucified”, explains
the young nun.
This is how it begins, this his how it has begun for the past
40 days. With a simple question. Hundreds of feet have trampled the red velvet carpet
that was carefully laid along the broad marble side walk on Via della Conciliazione,
the main thoroughfare that leads to St Peter’s Basilica, filing past the greatest
story ever told, the Via Crucis, or the Way of the Cross.
Fourteen
life-size stations line the wide sidewalk, cast in bronze they comprise 49 statues
and 11 crosses, and are the largest Stations of the Cross in the world. The sculptors,
Pasquale Nava and Giuseppe Allamprese, have been working on the project since 2002,
in conjuction with Domus Dei, of the Congregation of the Pie Discepole del Divin Maestro,
which produces art and liturgical objects for churches. The Via Crucis was commissioned
for the city of Coquimbo in Chile by the "Fundacion Cruz del III Milenio."
Over
40 days, pilgrims and tourists, believers and non believers, have been enthralled
by the sheer impact of this visual representation of the story of Christ’s Passion
and Crucifixion, and the Pie Discepole have always been on hand to patiently answer
the many questions this Via Crucis has provoked as Emer McCarthy found out when she
joined Sr. Mariella to walk the Way of Cross in the heart of the Vatican: