Pope chooses Maronite Patriarch to write this year's Way of the Cross meditations

January 28, 2013 - Pope Benedict XVI has asked the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rahi to write the meditations for this year’s Way of the Cross service on Good Friday at Rome's Colosseum on March 29. The Pope chose the Lebanese patriarch recalling his visit to the Middle East country, September 14 -16, to invite the prayers of the entire Church for the Middle East, its problems and its Christians communities. Cardinal Rahi will guide two Lebanese youth in writing the texts of the 14 stations of Way of the Cross, that the Pope presides over annually at Rome’s historic centre.
In 1985, Blessed John Paul II began asking people to compose meditations for his Good Friday prayer 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. Last year, Pope Benedict XVI had commissioned a married couple to write the meditations,