Pope presides over Good Friday procession

Associated Press

ROME

Desperate migrants, suicidal failed business owners, battered women, torture victims and all people suffering in the world were remembered at a torch-lit Good Friday Way of the Cross procession presided over by Pope Francis at the Colosseum.

With his head bowed and eyes often closed, Francis joined tens of thousands of faithful in listening to meditations read aloud in the ancient arena in downtown Rome. One meditation, read by Italian actress Virna Lisi, singled out the plight of child soldiers. Other readings recalled migrants who risk death in trying to reach the shores of affluent nations, women and children enslaved by human traffickers and inmates in overcrowded prisons.

The selection of subjects reflected the pope’s resolve to focus the Catholic church’s attention on those who suffer, often on the margins of society. The motif of the marginalized also mirrored much of Francis’ outreach in his first year of his papacy. His first pilgrimage outside of Rome as pope took him to a tiny island near Sicily where thousands of migrants arrive on smugglers’ rickety boats.

Francis wore a white overcoat over a plain white cassock against the chill of the night.

Near the end of the 90-minute service, Francis told the crowd in brief remarks that the cross represented the “weight of all our sins.” He decried the “monstrosity of man when he lets himself be guided by evil.”