No Pope had carried the cross through all 14 stations. Pope Leo, however, will do so on April 3, when the Via Crucis at the Colosseum will retrace the stages experienced by Jesus until his death on Golgotha. With him the Pontiff will bear the pain and suffering of all believers, especially those of the Holy Land. The meditations, which will be made known on the same day on Friday, were in fact entrusted, at the request of the Provost himself, to Father Francesco Patton, Custos of the Holy Land from 2016 to 2025 and today in Jordan, on Mount Nebo.
It was John XXIII to resume the tradition of the Via Crucis at the Colosseum for Easter 1959 after the celebration, which began in 1750 with Benedict XIV, was interrupted in 1870 with the capture of Rome. Only with Paul VI in 1965, however, became annual and broadcast on Eurovision. Paul VI himself carried the cross for some of the 14 Stations of the Cross. He also did the same John Paul II as long as his health permitted, subsequently limiting himself to presiding over the celebration from a stage on the Palatine Hill. Until Easter 2005 when Wojtyla was forced to follow the Way of the Cross from his study in the Vatican due to very serious health conditions that led to his death a week later. To write the meditationsthen Cardinal Ratzinger, who, in the commentary on the ninth station, the one in which Jesus falls for the third time, had denounced: «How much filth there is in the Churchand also precisely among those who, in the priesthood, should belong completely to him! From Pope Benedict XVI he took up the tradition of carrying the cross at some stations, while Pope Francis presided from the stage on the Palatine Hill until 2019 and 2022. In 2020 and 2021, due to the Covid pandemic, the Via Crucis was held in St. Peter’s Square. Since 2023, Pope Francis has no longer presided over the Via Crucis for health reasons.
