Pope Carries Cross in Good Friday Ritual

ROME —  Pope John Paul II carried a black wooden cross through the ruins of pagan ancient Rome and entered the torch-lit Colosseum in a Good Friday procession recalling Christ’s agonizing journey to his Crucifixion.

Thousands of people, many holding candles and prayer books, joined in the ritual ending the saddest day of the Christian year, two days before Easter Sunday.

Nuns, elderly people and schoolchildren in navy blue blazers and yellow neckties pressed against the white wooden barriers as the Pope, walking slowly, made the 14 Stations of the Cross.

The ritual recalls moments in Jesus’ final humiliation and agony. The stations include the three times he fell under the weight of the cross he was forced to carry to Jerusalem’s Mt. Calvary, where he was crucified between two thieves.

Other stations adapted from the New Testament account of his death include his encounter with Veronica, who wiped Jesus’ face with her veil, which became imprinted with an image of his face.

The Pontiff wore a white skullcap and a white layered gown topped by a burgundy-colored cape and draped with a gold-embroidered stole.

He pressed the nearly body-high cross, which weighed slightly more than two pounds, to his head as he made his way up the incline toward the Roman Forum--the center of life in ancient Rome.

During the early days of Christianity, according to tradition, many persecuted believers met their deaths in the Colosseum, thrown to the lions as entertainment for crowds that flocked there to see gladiators fight.

“The cross is the word of eternal life,” the Pope told the crowd at the end of the procession, standing atop the stone staircase.

The name of each station was read in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and the Pope’s native language, Polish. State-run RAI television broadcast the 40-minute ceremony live, and the Vatican said arrangements were made to televise it to 23 countries.

In an afternoon ceremony, John Paul walked barefoot up the main aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica and prayed before a crucifix shrouded in purple cloth.

Security guards used metal detectors, and in some cases frisked visitors, as the faithful entered the largest church in Christendom for the afternoon Communion service. Good Friday is the only day of the year on which Mass is not said.

Rays of late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows of Michelangelo’s dome as the Pope, in a white robe and with a miter, walked up the main aisle to the altar under the baroque canopy designed by Bernini.

Earlier in the day, the Pontiff donned a priest’s plain black vestments and heard confessions for more than an hour in one of the 27 hand-carved mahogany booths in the basilica.

Vatican officials chose 11 people--including a nurse from Ecuador, a nun from Zaire, an Italian soldier and a man from Poland--from among scores who had waited hours for a chance to confess to the Pope.