Pope Francis stepped down at the last minute from presiding over the Good Friday Way of the Cross to care for his health.

He Pope francesco he resigned from the presidency at the last minute Traditional Way of the Cross on Good Friday at the Colosseum in Rome to take care of their health before the remaining Holy Week rites.

“For preserve health “Before tomorrow’s vigil and the Holy Mass on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis will follow the Via Crucis of the Colosseum from Casa Santa Marta this afternoon,” the Vatican said in a short statement a few minutes before the start of the rite.

Francis, 87, recently suffered some respiratory problems but on Thursday he presided, apparently without problems, at the Holy Thursday mass in a women’s prison in Rome and this same Friday he led the ceremony of the passion of Christ in the Basilica of the Saint. Peter.

The Pope’s decision was last minute given that the chair on which he had to follow the Via Crucis was placed on the Palatine, in front of the Colosseum, where this ceremony takes place because it is a symbol of the persecution of the first Christians.

This also It would have been Bergoglio’s most personal via crucis because he had written the “meditations” in his own hand for the first time, the texts that are read along the fourteen stations of the Via Crucis to remember the journey towards the death of Jesus of Nazareth.

In his meditations, Francis dialogues with Jesus Christ in a world in which “the madness of war” reigns, “violence against women” and in which “a keyboard is enough to write sentences”, among other evils and needs.

Therefore, he argues that the “infamy and contempt” suffered by Jesus are something that happens today when “a keyboard is enough to insult and publish sentences”.

He also reflects on “when we fall back into our mistakes and sins, when we are scandalized by others and then we realize that we are no different”.

In the eighth station, when ‘Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem’, the pope asks us to “recognize the greatness of women, those who were faithful to you at Easter and did not abandon you, those who even today continue to be discarded, suffering insults and violence”.

And at this moment the Pope also reflects «if we cry in front of the madness of war, in front of the faces of children who no longer know how to smile, in front of their mothers who see them malnourished and hungry without even having any more tears to shed. ”

This afternoon the Vatican had announced, again a few hours before the Via Crucis, those responsible for carrying the Cross in the Colosseum: some cloistered nuns and a hermit, patients of a residence, a family, disabled people, young people, priests, catechists, priests, Caritas workers and a group of immigrants, among others.

Until this unexpected event, Francis normally participated in the rest of the Roman Holy Week rites and also presented himself at the general audience with the faithful last Wednesday, although he usually does so in the wheelchair which he uses due to mobility problems. of his acquaintances.

Likewise, even if in recent weeks he has given up reading his speeches and homilies in public, tired from the after-effects of a recent flu, as he explained, during this Holy Week he read them without major problems.

In the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, which opens the Easter Triduum, Francis read a long homily, while in the Mass of the Last Supper, in a women’s prison in Rome, he did not read the homily but improvised a short speech, first washing the feet of twelve wheelchair inmates.