Despite criticism from Ukraine, the Pope maintained a controversial gesture on the Via Crucis on Good Friday night. As announced on the program, a Ukrainian and a Russian carried the simple wooden cross together on a stage of the prayer service in front of the Coliseum. They live in Rome, work in nursing and are friends. However, the previously published text about the 13th Station of the Way of the Cross has been replaced by a shorter one. The shorter version of the text now presented read: “In the face of death, silence speaks louder than words. So let’s be silent in prayer and let’s all pray in our hearts for peace in the world.”
In previous days, the Ukrainian ambassador to the Vatican and the Greek-Catholic archbishop of Kiev had criticized the project as a premature gesture of reconciliation. In protest, several Catholic media outlets in Ukraine announced that they would not be broadcasting the Via Crucis live from Rome as usual. The Grand Archbishop of Kiev, Svyatoslav Shevchuk, was quoted as saying: “First we must stop killing each other, then we can talk about the next steps.”
For the first time in two years, the traditional Stations of the Cross with the Pope took place in front of the Roman Coliseum. About 10,000 people came to think about the suffering and death of Jesus Christ with Pope Francis. Before that, the corona pandemic had prevented such a large gathering.
They remain friends – despite the war between their two countries of origin: nurses Irina (left) and Albina (right) from Ukraine and Russia, who live in Rome. : Image: AFP
Pope Paul VI used to pray the Way of the Cross in the Coliseum on Good Friday. reintroduced in the 1960s. From early evening, thousands of oil lamps lit the facade and vault of the former battle arena. The first five stations of the cross are prayed in their vaults, after which the procession heads towards the Roman Forum. The Pope sits on the hill in front of the ancient Temple of Venus. He listens carefully to what young couples, childless and widowers are saying. From families in need of care, foster children, or a child with a disability whose parents have decided against abortion. Francis wanted families to be the authors of the meditations on the Via Sacra, because in June the “year of the Amoris laetitia family” that he proclaimed will come to an end. In doing so, he wants to once again recall concerns from his 2016 letter of the same name about marriage and family.
For Pope Francis, however, the war in Ukraine and the countless other conflicts in the world are the result of a general departure from peace. “We live according to a scheme in which we kill ourselves, for the desire for power, for security, for many things,” said the head of the Catholic Church in a TV interview broadcast on Good Friday by the Italian channel Rai 1. I understand that governments buy weapons. I understand them, but I don’t tolerate them,” Francis said.
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Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the pontiff has repeatedly criticized the use of weapons and advocated a diplomatic solution. “If we lived in a peace system, that wouldn’t be necessary,” he said in the interview. He also recalled “the hidden wars that are not seen, that are far from us. We have forgotten the language of peace”. It is always the weakest who suffer in wars, as the Argentine emphasized. With regard to refugees, he criticized that not all are treated equally. “Refugees are divided. First class, second class, by skin color, whether from a developed or underdeveloped country. We are racists, we are racists. And that’s bad,” the Pope said.
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In the afternoon, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, sent by the Pope, prayed the Way of the Cross in the destroyed city of Borodjanka, northwest of Kiev. He and the papal ambassador to Ukraine, Visvaldas Kulbokas, walked through the city’s streets. They held prayers where there were still unburied dead and in a mass grave with at least 80 unknown dead.
With a cross in the foreground: The Coliseum in Rome on Good Friday : Image: AFP