by Courtney Mares, OSV News
(OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV will carry the cross himself through all 14 stations of the Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum on the first Good Friday of his pontificate.
When asked about his decision to carry the cross, Pope Leo told reporters in Castel Gandolfo, “I think it will be an important sign because of what the pope represents, a spiritual leader today in the world, for this voice that everyone wants to hear to say that Christ still suffers, and I carry all these sufferings too in my prayer.”
“I would like to invite all people of goodwill, all people of faith, all Christians to walk together, to walk with Christ who suffered for us to give salvation, life, and to seek how we may also be bearers of peace and not of hatred,” he added.
It will be the first time that a pope has carried the cross for every station in the Via Crucis in more than three decades.
According to the Vatican’s archival research, communicated by Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni on April 3, St. John Paul II also carried the cross through the entire Way of the Cross on Good Friday from 1980 to 1994.
The 70-year-old pope’s predecessor Pope Francis presided over the Via Crucis from the nearby Palatine Hill and in his final years did not attend at all due to declining health. Pope Benedict XVI carried the cross only at the opening and closing of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum.
In 1756, Pope Benedict XIV dedicated the Colosseum to the memory of the passion of Christ and the early Christian martyrs, and the Stations of the Cross were regularly prayed in the Colosseum for about 100 years in the 18th and 19th centuries. St. John XXIII restored the Via Crucis tradition to the Colosseum with St. Paul VI making it a regular tradition in Rome.
The meditations for this year’s papal Stations of the Cross were written by Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, who served as custos of the Holy Land from 2016 to 2025. Often writing from Mount Nebo in Jordan, Father Patton has been a consistent voice on behalf of those suffering amid conflict and instability across the Middle East. The Holy See Press Office has said the texts will be published on the morning of Good Friday, April 3.
Last year’s Via Crucis meditations were written by the late Pope Francis following a prolonged hospitalization at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, though he was ultimately unable to attend the Colosseum ceremony due to his health.
Pope Leo also revived another papal tradition for Holy Week on Holy Thursday, celebrating a public Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, including the traditional washing of feet.
Pope Francis had broken with the practice of a public Holy Thursday papal Mass, choosing instead to celebrate the liturgy at prisons and wash the feet of inmates. Pope Leo’s return to St. John Lateran restores the public Easter Triduum liturgies to their traditional setting for the first time in years.
