Humanity’s failings shameful, Pope says as Christians prepare for Easter,
Christians mark Good Friday, prepare for Easter
ROME — Thousands of people, including nuns, families with toddlers and young tourists, endured exceptionally tight antiterrorism checks to pray at the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum, where Pope Francis expressed shame over humanity’s failings.
Francis, wearing a plain white coat, presided over the traditional, evening Way of the Cross procession from a rise overlooking the popular tourist monument as faithful took turns carrying a tall cross and meditations were recited to encourage reflection on Jesus’s suffering and crucifixion.
After the 90-minute procession ended, Francis, in a quiet voice, read a prayer he composed that alternated expressing shame for humanity’s failings and hope that “hardened hearts” will become capable of forgiving and loving.
With Easter on Sunday, Francis said faithful look to Christ “with eyes lowered in shame and with hearts full of hope.”
Such shame, he said, derives from “all those images of devastation, destruction, shipwrecks, that have become routine in our lives.”
Hundreds of thousands of migrants have endured hardships at the hands of human traffickers to try to reach Europe, which has increasingly been rejecting them, and thousands of them have perished at sea during the last few years.
Evoking wars and conflicts, as well as attacks on Christian minorities, Francis also voiced shame for “the innocent blood spilled daily by women, children, immigrants, and persons persecuted because of the color of their skin, or for the ethnic or social group they belong to, and for their faith” in Jesus.
The pontiff also made a reference to clergy’s handling of sex abuse of minors, saying: “Shame for all those times that we bishops, priests and other clergy scandalized” the church.
Hours before the evocative, candlelit ceremony, pilgrims underwent the first of two rounds of security checks that started while they still were blocks away from the ancient arena. There was a heavier-thanusual police presence keeping watch on every aspect of the event.
Anti-terrorism measures have been heightened for large public crowds after several vehicle attacks in Nice, Berlin and other European cities. Terrorism’s repercussions were being felt in Christian communities across the Mediterranean.
In Egypt, Coptic churches announced that Easter services would be limited to prayers, without festivities. The measure was taken after twin bombings in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria killed 45 people at churches on Palm Sunday.
In the Philippines, several Filipino devotees were nailed to crosses in a re-enactment of a Good Friday ritual, which one of the men dedicated to the victims of the deadly bombings of two churches in Egypt.
Ruben Enaje, 57, who has been re-enacting Jesus Christ’s suffering and death for the past 31 years, said he always prays for the health of his family during the ritual. But this time, he added the Coptic victims.
In Jerusalem, Christians from around the world commemorated the crucifixion of Christ by following the path in the Old City where, according to tradition, he walked on the way to the cross.
Festivities were marred by violence when a 57-year-old Palestinian man stabbed a young woman from Britain to death near the Old City.