2006-04-12 14:52:52

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








All the contents on this site are copyrighted ©.