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”.