Pope condemns 'diabolical' threat to family
Pope Benedict XVI reflected on “diabolical” threats to families and the gap between the world’s rich and poor as he led a torch-lit, Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday, resuming a papal tradition that dying John Paul II was forced to renounce a year ago.
As a full moon hung behind the ancient amphitheatre, Benedict compared Jesus’ suffering at his crucifixion to that of the “whole of human history, a history where the good are humiliated, the meek assaulted, the honest crushed, and the pure of heart roundly mocked”.
Wearing a red cloak, Benedict gripped the slender, dark wooden cross as he began the procession, and the reflection of the flickering lights of candles held by faithful played on the wood.
At the end of the 90-minute procession, Benedict delivered off-the-cuff remarks to thousands of pilgrims and tourists who clutched candles, telling them that the “Way of the Cross … crosses continents and time”.
“In the mirror of the cross we have seen all the suffering of humanity today. We saw the suffering of abandoned, abused children … threats against families, the division in the world in the pride of the rich and the misery of all those who suffer hunger and thirst,” Benedict said, urging people to strive to “impose limits on the evil” in the world.
Last year saw John Paul fail to preside over the Colosseum ceremony for the first time in his papacy. Instead, only eight days before his death, John Paul silently watched the ritual on TV from his papal apartment and listened to the meditations, which were then composed by German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the churchman who would be elected pontiff, taking the name Benedict XVI, after the pontiff’s death.
Benedict, who turns 79 on Easter Sunday, stepped briskly along the path through the ancient ruins before handing the cross over to Cardinal Camillo Ruini, his vicar for Rome.
Among the reflections the Pope listened to was a scathing denunciation of what was called attacks on families.
“Surely God is deeply pained by the attack on the family,” said the meditation, which was composed by Archbishop Angelo Comastri, the pope’s vicar general for Vatican City. “Today we seem to be witnessing a kind of anti-Genesis, a counter-plan, a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family.”
Benedict has been vigorously keeping up a campaign by John Paul II, against laws permitting gay marriage, abortion and other developments the Vatican views as undermining the institution of the family.
Another meditation lamented that in some places people ”are concerned about obesity”, while in others, “they are begging for charity”.
Mexican, Korean, Angolan and Nigerian faithful as well as a Roman family were among those taking turns bearing the cross after Benedict.
The procession re-enacts Jesus’ suffering, final hours and crucifixion death.
Earlier in the evening, the Pope clutched a tall wooden crucifix in St Peter’s Basilica as he bowed his head silently in prayer and reflection during a Good Friday ceremony.
During that service, Benedict heard a homily by the papal household’s preacher, who attacked works such as best-selling novel “The Da Vinci Code” that deny Vatican teaching about Jesus and his life. The preacher lamented that a movie was being made about the work of fiction by writer Dan Brown.
Elsewhere in the world, Catholics marked Good Friday with other rituals, including one in San Pedro Cutud, Philippines, where at least seven Filipino devotees were nailed to the cross during annual re-enactments of Jesus Christ’s final hours, organisers said.
The Lenten ritual is opposed by religious leaders in the Philippines - Southeast Asia’s largest predominantly Roman Catholic nation – but it has persisted to become one of the country’s most-awaited summer attractions in the village about 70km north of Manila.
In Jerusalem’s Old City, thousands of Good Friday pilgrims filled the narrow streets, retracing the route that Jesus followed on the way to his crucifixion. The processions ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which marks the site of the crucifixion.
