Pope asks married couple to compose Way of the Cross meditations
(March 16, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI has asked an Italian married couple to write the
meditations for his Good Friday’s Way of the Cross service at Rome's Colosseum on
April 6. The Vatican announced on Thursday that the Pope has asked Danilo and Annamaria
Zanzucchi to write the meditations, which will be read over loudspeakers as a cross
is carried through and around the Colosseum on Good Friday. The theme of the meditations
will be the family as the Way of the Cross winds its way through the 14 Stations commemorating
Christ’s last moments when he carries His cross to Calvary. The Zanzucchis are the
founders of the New Families Movement, which is a branch of the Focolare Movement
of late Chiara Lubich. The husband and wife launched their movement in 1967 to strengthen
families and encourage their spiritual growth and social commitment. The New Families
Movement claims some 300,000 members around the world. In 1985, Blessed John Paul
II began asking people to compose meditations for his Good Friday Way of the Croiss
service rather than using traditional texts. Over the years, he asked bishops and
theologians, priests and religious women and - in 2002 - an international group of
journalists who were covering the Vatican. The 2005 meditations, used just a few days
before Blessed John Paul's death, were written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope
Benedict. Danilo and Annamaria Zanzucchi are the first married couple entrusted with
the task.