The Vatican cancels the Pope's presence at the Via Crucis at the last minute to "preserve his health"

ROMA, 29 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Vatican Press Office annulled late this Friday that the Pope will not preside over the Via Crucis from the box set up in the Colosseum to "preserve his health."

In a brief statement, they explained that the 87-year-old pontiff will follow him from his residence in Casa Santa Marta.

"To preserve his health ahead of tomorrow's Vigil and the Easter Sunday Mass, Pope Francis will follow the Via Crucis of the Colosseum this afternoon from the Casa Santa Marta," reported the director of the Vatican Press Office, Matteo Bruni.

The Vatican itself had reported a few hours before that the Pontiff would preside over the Via Crucis.

"At 9:15 p.m. tonight, the Holy Father Francis will preside in the Colosseum over the pious exercise of the Via Crucis, broadcast throughout the world," the Vatican had previously stated.

Among the people who will pass the Cross from station to station are, for example, several cloistered nuns and a hermit; a family; people who suffer from some type of disability or a group of immigrants.

Francis was not going to participate in the procession and had planned to preside over the Via Crucis from a box on the Palatine Hill, just in front of the Colosseum.

The Pope, who will turn 88 in December, avoided prostrating himself on the floor of St. Peter's Basilica this Friday during the Easter Vigil ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica, where Catholics await the Resurrection of Jesus. Instead, he has opted for a moment of silence stripped of his miter and skullcap in front of Bernini's baldachin, which is covered by scaffolding due to the restoration work to which the monument is undergoing.

For the first time, the Pontiff has written the meditations in his own handwriting and in them the attitude of those who hide behind "a keyboard" to insult and refers to Christians who "suffer persecution" in the world for being faithful to the name of Jesus.

"It also happens today, Lord, and a macabre procession is not even necessary; a keyboard is enough to insult and publish condemnations," he emphasizes in the sixth station of the Via Crucis, which refers to the episode in which Veronica approaches Jesus and rinses him. the face.

The Pope also calls to recognize "the greatness of women, who even today are discarded suffering abuse and violence."

Francis has broken the structure of the 14 canonical stations and has invented a new 11th station titled 'The cry of abandonment of Jesus on the Cross' - originally 'Jesus falls the third time'. "Jesus, through your cross you have made us all one thing: gather believers in communion, instill in us fraternal and patient feelings, help us to cooperate and walk together; keep the Church and the world in peace," he also asks.

Furthermore, in the meditations of the Via Crucis, whose tradition records the persecution that the first Christians suffered by the Roman Empire, he denounces the "madness of war" and thus refers to the "faces of children who no longer know how to smile" and that of the mothers "who see them malnourished and hungry and have no more tears to shed."