Vatican City, Apr 13, 2006 / 22:00 pm
This Good Friday at night, in the Roman Coliseum, the place where numerous Christians suffered martyrdom in the first centuries of the Church, became again this year the Via Dolorosa, were thousands of faithful lead by Pope Benedict XVI meditated on the destructive power of sin and the saving power of Christ’s Cross.
The meditations and prayers of the Way of the Cross were prepared this year by the Vicar General of his Holiness for the City of the Vatican, Archbishop Angelo Comastri. At the onset of the way, the text of the prelate was read, in which it affirmed that “as we follow the way of the Cross, we are startled by two facts: the certainty of the devastating power of sin and the certainty of the healing power of God’s love.”
The route of the way of the Cross started inside the famous Flavian amphitheatre, then followed through the Trajan Arch and ended on the Palatine Hill.
The Vicar of the Pope for the diocese of Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini carried the cross for the second station, he was then followed by a roman family, a young seminarian from the United States, a young Mexican girl from the diocese of Léon, two Franciscan friars from the Holy Land, a Korean , another women and finally two African girls from Angola and Nigeria.