Pope Benedict XVI to lead his first ‘Way of the Cross’ service at Colosseum in Rome
(April 12, 2006) : Pope Benedict XVI will lead his first Way of the Cross service
in the shadows of Rome's torch-lit Colosseum on Thursday April 14. Each year the pope
asks a different person to write a commentary and prayers to help people realize that
even today the sin and evil that led to Christ's suffering and death continue. In
the 2005 meditations, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger focused on how people, including
those who call themselves Christians, push God to the margins of their lives, ignoring
traditional moral values. "Lord," he had written, "your church often seems like a
boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. The soiled garments and
face of your church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we who betray you time and
time again," he wrote. This year, Pope Benedict asked Archbishop Angelo Comastri,
his vicar for Vatican City State, to write the meditations for the 2006 night-time
ritual. Archbishop Comastri, looks at the sins and divisions that add weight to the
cross Christ must bear. He also draws from Pope Benedict's first encyclical, "Deus
Caritas Est" ("God Is Love") to remind those who follow the Stations of the Cross
that Christ's death and resurrection are the supreme sign of God's love and his desire
to forgive. In his death, Jesus filled death itself with love; he filled it with the
presence of God," the archbishop writes. For the first time this year, the Vatican
published 103,000 copies of the meditations booklets and sent to bookstores throughout
Italy. In addition, translations in English, French, German, Polish, Portuguese and
Spanish are also available on the Vatican Web site -- www.vatican.va