Ukrainian and Russian families will carry the cross together during the Stations of the Cross led by Pope Francis at Rome’s Colosseum on Good Friday.
The Vatican has published the meditations and prayers for the Pope’s Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, which will focus this year on the many “crosses” of family life.
The meditations include reflections from a couple without children, a family with a disabled child, a family with an ill grand-parent, a family of migrants, and families suffering due to the Ukraine war.
For the 13th station, “Jesus dies on the Cross,” a Ukrainian family and a Russian family will read a reflection that they wrote together about how their lives were upended by the pain of war. “Why has my land become as dark as Golgotha? We have no tears left. Anger has given way to resignation,” the text of the reflection says.
“Lord, where are you? Speak to us amid the silence of death and division, and teach us to be peacemakers, brothers and sisters, and to rebuild what bombs tried to destroy,” it says. The prayer following the meditation calls Jesus’ pierced side a “wellspring of reconciliation for all peoples” and asks God that “families devastated by tears and blood may believe in the power of forgiveness.”
The two families, whose home countries are at war, will carry a wooden cross together for the 13th station in the Colosseum before passing it to a family of migrants, who will carry the cross for the final station.
On April 15 at 9:15 p.m., Pope Francis will preside over the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum, a Roman practice dating back to the pontificate of Benedict XIV, who died in 1758.
This is the first time that the pope is returning to the Colosseum on Good Friday since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past two years, papal liturgies during Holy Week were kept very small due to pandemic restrictions.

Pope Francis on April 7 recalled the 500th anniversary of the election of Pope Adrian VI, who sought reconciliation between the Catholic Church and Martin Luther during his short pontificate.
“In his brief pontificate, which lasted only a little more than a year, he sought above all reconciliation in the Church and the world, putting into practice the words of St. Paul, according to which God entrusted precisely to the Apostles the ministry of reconciliation,” Pope Francis said on April 7.
For this reason, Adrian VI sent the nuncio to the Imperial Diets of Nuremberg “to reconcile Luther and his followers with the Church, and expressly asking forgiveness for the sins of the prelates of the Roman Curia,” he stated.
“Courageous,” Francis add-ed. “He would have plenty of work today.”

Without naming names, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri lamented how a national leader, yearning to restore “a past of imperialist power,” can sow death and destruction.
The cardinal’s apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine came during a homily April 5 at a Mass in Orvieto with officers and cadets of Italy’s Finance Police, who were attending an anti-terrorism training course.
Before celebrating the Mass, Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, gave an overview of the situation facing Eastern Catholics in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, his office said.
The Old Testament reading at the Mass recounted how the Israelites complained to Moses and to God after they had been led out of Egypt and slavery and, the cardinal said, seemed almost to long for what they had when they were enslaved.

When can devotees of “The Passion of the Christ” be able to see the sequel?
Not anytime soon, from the sounds of it.
In an interview on “The World Over” that aired April 7, Gibson, who produced, co-wrote, and directed the hugely successful 2005 film about the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo that he hasn’t yet settled on a script for the sequel, which picks up the story with Jesus’ resurrection.
“So when can we expect a script, Mel?” Arroyo asked.
“Well, I’ve got two scripts,” Gibson revealed. “So I’ve got the pair of them, and they’re both good.”
Arroyo interviewed Gibson, actor Mark Wahlberg, and writer-director Rosalind Ross about the launch of their new film, “Father Stu,” a biopic about the late Father Stuart Long, a no-nonsense Montana priest who died of a rare muscular condition in 2014.
Wahlberg plays the role of Father Stu in the film and Gibson plays the role of Bill Long, the late priest’s father. The film comes out nationwide April 13, to coincide with the start of Holy Week.
“Father Stu was a living embodiment of grace and strength and suffering. And you hear it from anybody whose life he touched, that he was incredibly grateful for what afflicted him and had such dignity and strength in it,” Ross told Arroyo.

Prayers are being sought for the safe release of Sister Suellen Tennyson, 83, an American Catholic nun who was reportedly kidnapped in Burkina Faso the night of April 4.
“On the night of Mon-day 4 to Tuesday 5 April 2022, Unidentified Armed Men (UAM) visited the community of nuns in Yalgo Parish of the Diocese of Kaya. They abducted Sister Suellen Tennyson, from the Congregation of Marianite Sisters of the Holy Cross,” Bishop Théophile Nare of Kaya said in an April 5 statement shared with ACI Africa.
The bishop added, “Sr. Suellen Tennyson was taken to an unknown destination by her kidnappers who, before leaving, vandalized rooms (and) damaged the community vehicle, which they attempted to take with them.” “Until the search for her is successful, we remain in communion of prayer for the release of Sr. Suellen Tennyson,” Bishop Nare stated.

Months after protests of the government’s apparent refusal to approve the rebuilding of a damaged church, nine Christian protesters in Egypt remain in detention as supporters call for their re-lease.
“Instead of arresting a number of residents of the estate, official and security authorities should have responded promptly to their demands and issued a decision to rebuild the church,” Ishak Ibrahim, a freedom of religion and belief expert at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said March 13.
He noted that the villagers had taken a legal path to seek the permit.
At the centre of the matter is the Coptic Orthodox St. Joseph and Abu Sefein Church in Ezbet Farag Allah village in the Minya governorate. In 2016 the church was severely damaged by an unexplained fire that some locals fear was deliberately set. It was the only church for the 800 Christians in the area.

A Catholic nun from India serving the war-hit people of Ukraine says hungry and frustrated Russian soldiers now invade Ukrainian homes, loot food and rape women.
“We hear stories of such atrocities almost daily, and we too live in fear and anxiety,” says Sister Ligi Payyappilly, who shelters around 75 women and children besides 50 elderly people at her convent at Mukachevo in western Ukraine.
The 48-year-old superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Saint-Marc convent says the Russian soldiers have now started attacking camps and government shelter homes for refugees, besides residential homes.
“They want food and sex, and they are hungry, angry and frustrated,” Sister Payyappilly told on April 7.
The nun, who came to limelight when she helped overseas students escape to neighbouring countries, said the Russian soldiers, who have exhausted their food stock, have no hope of returning home. “They have started acting crazy,” she added.
According to the Washington Post, an estimated 15,000 Russian troops have been killed, three times more are either wounded or taken prisoner in Ukraine — an estimate from NATO, based on the assumption that for every soldier killed, three are wounded.
As the Russian invasion entered the 41st day on April 6, human casualties remained high for Russians whereas Ukrainians have suffered huge infrastructure loss. The Russians in the invaded land are now attacking civilians, according to Sister Payyappilly, a Ukrainian citizen now.
When the war started on February 24, Mukachevo and other places in western Ukraine were safe. However, the Russians have now started attacking the western region.

Pope Francis returned to Rome on Sunday after a two-day trip to Malta. During the April 2-3 visit, he addressed civil authorities, visited a Marian shrine and the site where tradition holds that St. Paul stayed in 60 A.D., celebrated an outdoor Mass, and met with migrants and refugees.
Pope Francis’ press conference on the flight from Malta.
“My health is a bit fickle, I have this knee problem that brings out problems with walking. It is a bit annoying, but it is getting better, at least I can walk, until a week ago I couldn’t do it. It’s a slow thing this winter… at this age, you don’t know how the match will end. Let’s hope it goes well.” Pope Francis’ said in a press conference on the flight from Malta.
“The way Europe is making room, with much generosity, to Ukrainians, opening the door to Ukrainians, they are doing even to those who come from the Mediterranean. This is a point that finished my visit [and] touched me so much. I felt their suffering, which is more or less what I told you is in that little book that came out, “Hermanito,” in Spanish, “the little brother,” the suffering of these people. One person who spoke today had to pay four times. I ask you to think about this.”
“War is always a cruelty, an inhumane thing that goes against the human spirit – I don’t say Christian, human. It is the spirit of Cain that is said to go there. I am willing to do everything that can be done, and the Holy See, especially the diplomatic part – Cardinal Parolin, Msgr. Gallagher – are doing everything, everything. You cannot publish everything they do, out of prudence, out of confidentiality, but we are at the limit of the work. A trip is among the possibilities.” As a message for Putin the Pope said.

Pope Francis lamented the “sacrilegious war” in Ukraine as he prayed the Angelus in Malta on April 3. Speaking immediately after celebrating an outdoor Mass in the Maltese capital, Valletta, on April 3, the Pope urged Catholics to pray for people aiding the suffering following the full-scale Russian invasion.
“May the Lord accompany you, and Our Lady keep you,” he said. “Let us now pray to her for peace, as we think of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in war-torn Ukraine, still under the bombardment of this sacrilegious war. May we be tireless in praying and in offering assistance to those who suffer.”
The Pope has referred to the war throughout his two-day trip to the archipelago in the central Mediterranean Sea. Before leaving Rome, he met with a group of Ukrainian refugees. On the flight to Malta, he said that a papal visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was “on the table.” In a speech to Malta’s civil authorities on the first day of his visit, the Pope alluded to the war in Ukraine, saying: “Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared, or not be at all.”
In his brief address before reciting the Angelus prayer, the Pope thanked the Maltese authorities and people for their warm welcome.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in an interview published on March 31 that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is “not set in stone” and “one is also allowed to doubt what it says.” The cardinal made the comments in a seven-page spread in the March 31 edition of the weekly current affairs magazine Stern, reported.
Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, is one of the most influential Catholic leaders in Europe, serving as a member of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinal Advisers and president of the Vatican’s Council for the Economy. He spoke about the Catechism in response to a question about “how homosexual, queer, or trans people are to be accommodated in Catholic teaching.”
He said: “An inclusive ethic that we envision is not about being lax — as some claim. It is about something else: encounter at eye level, respect for the other. The value of love is shown in the relationship; in not making the other person an object, in not using or humiliating the other person, in being faithful and dependable to each other. The Catechism is not set in stone. One may also doubt what it says.”
He went on: “We discussed these questions during the family synod, but there was reluctance to set something down. Even then I said: there are people living in an intimate love relationship that is expressed sexually. Are we really going to say that this is worthless?”