Pope leads Easter pilgrims in torch-lit procession

Pope Benedict reflected on the suffering of Jesus Christ and that of humanity throughout the ages as he led thousands of pilgrims and tourists in a torch-lit, Way of the Cross procession at the Coliseum in Rome to mark Good Friday.

Opening the late-night procession with a prayer, Benedict said Jesus’s suffering “is 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”.

But anticipating the joy that Christians share on Easter Sunday in their belief that Jesus rose from the dead, Benedict told the faithful that in Jesus “the good have already won” and the “meek have already triumphed”.

Wearing a red cloak, Benedict gripped the slender, dark wooden cross as he began the procession, and the reflectio of the flickering lights of candles held by faithful played on the wood.

“Lord Jesus, tonight we walk once more the way of your cross, knowing that it is also our way,” Benedict said.

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.

One of the reflections that the Pope listened to during the procession 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 his predecessor, John Paul II, against laws permitting gay marriage, abortion and other developments the Vatican views as undermining the institution of the family.

Mexican, Korean, Angolan and Nigerian lay people, and 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 pontiff clutched a tall wooden crucifix in St Peter’s Basilica as he bowed his head silently in prayer and reflection toward the end of a two-hour-long 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 film was made about the work of fiction by writer Dan Brown.

Last year saw a dying Pope John Paul II fail to participate in the procession for the first time in his papacy.

Instead, John Paul silently watched the ritual on TV from his papal apartment and listened to the meditations, which were composed by German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the churchman who would be elected pontiff, taking the name Benedict XVI, after John Paul’s death.