Clerical kidnappings, elections, and COVID dominate Catholic news in Americas
- Apr 13, 2021
Pope Francis prayed that people don’t feel lost amid the problems of the pandemic as he listened to children’s poignant accounts of sorrow and loneliness, which provided the motif for an unusual Way of the Cross torch-lit Good Friday procession in St. Peter’s Square.
Shortly after assuring of his closeness amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak on an Italian television program, Pope Francis on Good Friday yet again appeared in a nearly empty St. Peter’s Square to lead a livestreamed Via Crucis with meditations written by prisoners.
Meditations for Pope Francis’s “Via Crucis” ceremony on Good Friday were written by prisoners and their families, as well as crime victims and their families.
While Pope Francis’s Way of the Cross service on Good Friday has been transferred to the Vatican because of the coronavirus pandemic, the meditations focus, as always, on those who share the pain, suffering and heartbreak that characterized Christ’s passion and death.
Pope Francis has asked the prisoners, guards and the chaplain of a northern Italian prison to write this year’s Way of the Cross meditations.
Catholics in Mumbai reflected on the abuse scandal facing the Church during a Via Crucis in the city’s historically-Christian Bandra neighborhood.
Sister Eugenia Bonetti says that her reflections for the Way of the Cross will show the way in which Jesus is still suffering today.
Pope Francis has asked an Italian nun, who has been on the frontlines in the fight against human trafficking, to write this year’s Way of the Cross meditations.