Pope Francis to take part in East Vigil after scare
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was scheduled to take part in an Easter Vigil service last night as planned following his last-minute cancellation from the Good Friday procession at Rome's Colosseum, the Vatican said.
A Vatican statement listed the evening service in St Peter's Basilica as the pope's only public engagement for the day.
On Friday, the Vatican said Francis’ participation at the “Via Crucis” (Way of the Cross) procession had been cancelled “to preserve his health” ahead of more Easter week events.
Francis, who is 87, needs a wheelchair or a cane to move around, and has recently limited his public speaking while struggling with bronchitis and the flu.
Easter falls on Sunday and is the most important date in the Church’s liturgical calendar, celebrating the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.
During the day, Francis is due to celebrate Mass and deliver his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and world) message and blessings from the central balcony of St Peter’s.
Francis uses a cane or a wheelchair to move around due to a knee ailment, and suffers from repeated bouts of bronchitis and influenza.
The Vatican announced the pope’s absence from the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession just as it was about to start, saying in a statement he would follow it remotely from his Vatican residence.
Francis, who had looked fitter this week after weeks in which he struggled to speak in public and cancelled some meetings, also missed the procession last year, after recovering from a fourday hospital stay for bronchitis.
The Via Crucis at the Colosseum is a re-enactment of Jesus’ death by crucifixion, in which participants take turns holding the cross as they walk in and around the ancient Roman arena, stopping to pray and hear meditations.
Nuns, priests, a hermit, charity workers, migrants and disabled people were among those who took part in the service, held in a monument believed to have been a place of martyrdom for early Christians.
Francis personally wrote the meditations for this year, a first in his 11-year papacy. They included praises for meekness and forgiveness in response to acts of evil, and prayers for persecuted Christians and war victims.
The pope, who has called for the Catholic church to become less male-dominated, also hailed the women who helped Jesus while he carried the cross, and pleaded for “those [women] who in our own day are exploited and endure injustice and indignity”.