Pope at Colosseum: Follow Christ’s path, including the Way of the Cross, to bring peace

Life must be lived as a journey seeking to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, Pope Leo XIV said after completing the Stations of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum.

“Let us make our own the prayer by which St. Francis invites us to live our lives as a journey of ever-deepening participation in the communion of love that unites the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” he said at the conclusion of the nighttime service April 3.

It was the first time since 2022 that a pope presided in person at the candlelit ceremony; several bouts of poor health had prevented Pope Francis from attending the ceremony in his final years. It was also the first time since 1994 a pope carried the cross for all 14 stations — something St. John Paul II had started at the beginning of his pontificate.

Pope Leo told reporters March 31 that carrying the cross for the entire route would be “an important sign because of what the pope represents — the spiritual leader of the world today — and because of this message that everyone wants to hear and say: that Christ still suffers.”

“I, too, carry all this suffering in my prayers, and I would like to invite all people of goodwill, people of faith, all Christians, to walk together, to walk with Christ who suffered for us to give us salvation and life, and to seek how we, too, can be bearers of peace and not of hatred,” he had said.

Because 2026 marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Leo asked Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, who served as custos of the Holy Land from 2016 to 2025, to write the meditations for this year’s Good Friday service.

St. Francis always invited the faithful to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, the Franciscan priest wrote in his introduction. May walking the Way of the Cross “be more than a mere ritual or intellectual journey, but one that transforms our entire person and life.”

The readings, prayers and reflections touched on the many forms of suffering and pain afflicting the world today, and implored deliverance from evil, temptations and fear.

“Every person in authority will have to answer to God for the way they exercise their power,” he wrote for the first station, “Jesus is condemned to death.”

People have the power to: judge; start or end a war; instill violence or peace; fuel the desire for revenge or for reconciliation; use the economy to oppress people or to liberate them from misery; trample on human dignity or to uphold it; and the power to promote and defend life, or reject and stifle it, he wrote.

But Jesus says, “whatever you do to another human being, especially to the small and vulnerable, you do unto me. And it is to me that you will one day give an account,” he wrote.

True power, he wrote for the 11th station, “Jesus is nailed to the cross,” is rooted in learning how to forgive “and to bear the difficulties of life in peace, because it is not love of power that conquers, but the power of love.”

For the eighth station, “Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem,” Father Patton wrote about the women who weep throughout history. “For centuries, they have wept for themselves and for their children, children taken away and imprisoned during protests, deported by policies devoid of compassion, shipwrecked on desperate journeys of hope, killed in war zones, and wiped out in death camps.”

“Give us tears once more, Lord, lest our conscience fade into the fog of indifference and we cease to be fully human,” he wrote.

For the 10th station, “Jesus is stripped of his garments,” the priest wrote about the many forms of violation repeated today, such as torture, intrusive surveillance, rape and abuse. It also includes “when the entertainment industry exploits nudity for the sake of profit; when the media exposes individuals to public opinion; and even when we ourselves, through our curiosity, fail to respect the modesty, intimacy and privacy of others.”

“Remind us, Lord, that each time we fail to recognize the dignity of others, our own dignity is diminished. And whenever we condone or take part in inhuman behavior toward any person, we ourselves become less human,” he wrote.

At the conclusion of the Way of the Cross, Pope Leo gave his blessing and repeated a prayer written by St. Francis, asking that “God give us miserable ones the grace to do for you alone what we know you want us to do and always to desire what pleases you.”

“Inwardly cleansed, interiorly enlightened and inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, may we be able to follow in the footprints of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and, by your grace alone, may we make our way to you,” he prayed.

Earlier in the day, the pope presided over the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, which commemorates Christ’s passion and death on the cross.

The rite began with Pope Leo’s silent procession down the central nave. Dressed in red vestments, symbolizing the blood of Christ’s Passion, he somberly lay prostrate before the altar, a sign of adoration and penance. The readings recounted Christ’s passion and death on the cross.

At the moment of the veneration of the cross, the pope removed his chasuble and shoes and knelt before the crucifix in a gesture of humility. Clergy followed one by one, venerating the cross on bended knee and with a kiss.

Following tradition, the homily was delivered by Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, preacher of the papal household.

He urged the faithful not to give in to violence, but rather find the “discreet and stubborn song that invites (us) to love.”

“We are all constantly tempted to use a little bit of aggressiveness, a little bit of violence, thinking that without these means things will never be resolved,” he said April 3 in St. Peter’s Basilica. “The servant of the Lord cannot give in to this instinct.”

“In a time like ours, still so lacerated by hatred and violence, where even the name of God is invoked to justify wars and decisions of death,” he said.

This evil continues “to circulate because it always finds someone willing to return it and multiply it,” he added.

His homily emphasized that resisting this evil of violence is neither easy nor instinctive. Faced with injustice, the natural human reaction is to retaliate or “even the scores.” Yet Jesus refused that instinct entirely.

“He accepts everything without returning violence,” Father Pasolini said.

Jesus “broke this chain,” not through superior force, but by embracing suffering and responding with forgiveness, silence and compassion, the papal preacher said.

Father Pasolini pointed to what he called a “silent line of people,” ordinary men and women who, often unnoticed, choose to resist hatred in their daily lives.

“They get up every day and try to make their life something that is not only for them, but also for others,” he said. “They carry burdens that they have not chosen, they receive wounds without becoming bitter, they don’t stop looking for the good, even when it seems useless.”

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