For the past three years, Pope Francis has been absent from the Colosseum due to health reasons. Leo XIV entrusted the preparation of the reflections read at each station to an Italian Franciscan, former custodian of the Holy Land, Father Francesco Patton. This is particularly important in connection with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the significant limitation of the possibility of organizing Holy Week celebrations in Jerusalem for security reasons.
Crowds of people around the Colosseum
In them, the monk presented a picture of the world: wars, massacres, genocide, mothers mourning their children, people's suffering due to the “cynicism of tyrants”, authoritarian regimes and authorities recognizing that they can dispose of the lives of others.
Father Patton also wrote: “Every power will have to give an account to God of the way in which it has exercised the government it has received: the power to judge, but also the power to make war or to end it, the power to educate to violence or to peace, the power to excite the desire for vengeance or reconciliation, the power to use economics to oppress nations or to free them from misery, the power to trample on human dignity or to guard it, the power to promote and defend life or to reject and destroy it.”
The author was inspired by the Gospel and the writings of Saint Francis of Assisi on the 800th anniversary of his death.
The Pope will speak at the end of the service. Thousands of people gathered around the suggestively lit Colosseum, where extraordinary security measures were introduced.
