World’s Christians mark crucifixion, suffering of Jesus
Christians around the world marked the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in Good Friday prayers and processions.
Thousands of Christian pilgrims filled the cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City along the Via Dolorosa, Latin for the “Way of Suffering.” They carried wooden crosses and followed the 14 stations ending at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Tradition says the church was built on the site where Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.
In Rome, all people suffering in the world were remembered at a torch-lit Good Friday Way of the Cross procession presided over by Pope Francis at the Colosseum.
With his head bowed and eyes often closed, Francis joined tens of thousands of faithful in listening to meditations read aloud in the ancient arena in downtown Rome. One meditation, read by Italian actress Virna Lisi, singled out the plight of child soldiers. Other readings recalled migrants who risk death in trying to reach the shores of affluent nations, women and children enslaved by human traffickers and inmates in overcrowded prisons.
The selection of subjects reflected the pope’s resolve to focus the Catholic church’s attention on those who suffer, often on the margins of society. The motif of the marginalized also mirrored much of Francis’ outreach in his first year of his papacy. His first pilgrimage outside of Rome as pope took him to a tiny island near Sicily where thousands of migrants arrive on smugglers’ rickety boats.
Devotees i n northern Philippine villages had themselves nailed to wooded crosses to re-enact the crucifixion in Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation. Church leaders and health officials have spoken against the practice, which mixes Catholic devotion with folk belief.