On the evening of Friday, April 3, the traditional Via Crucis through the streets of Rome, led by Pope Leo XIV, will feature texts written by a Franciscan, Fr. Francesco Patton, who served as Custos of the Holy Land from 2016 to 2025.
What was the genesis of this text and how did it come into the hands of Pope Leo?
The genesis is very simple. I received a phone call from the Secretariat of State and they told me that Pope Leo had asked them to contact me to prepare the texts for the Via Crucis at the Colosseum on Good Friday this year, since this year marks the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis.
This made me a bit apprehensive, but it also honored me and I gave my availability.
How was the process of compiling the text?
I first drafted a proposal of biblical and Franciscan texts to include in the meditations, and then meditations in the form of prayer to add to each station. In the biblical texts I gave preference to the Gospel of John, except where certain figures are mentioned, such as the Cyrenian, whom the Gospel of John does not cite.
For the writings of Saint Francis I sought those passages that could best constitute a Franciscan deepening of the theme of each station, and I tried to construct reflections that would have a universal character, with also an existential dimension.
For example, when I speak about the condemnation of Jesus by Pilate, I developed a reflection on power. I also wrote reflections on the suffering of mothers for the loss of their children. Another theme addressed is the importance of always recognizing the dignity of the person, remembering that Jesus Christ died on the cross for all, and therefore his Via Crucis is also a sign of closeness to those who are considered bargaining chips, to those considered irredeemable criminals, and to those considered far from God.
The Via Crucis is the deepest, most universal, but also the most inclusive act of love that exists.
In recent years several texts by Fr. Francesco Patton have been published using this form of prayer. What is particular about the Franciscan tradition in the Via Crucis?
The particularity is first of all physical. The Via Crucis was born in Jerusalem and took its current form along the Via Dolorosa thanks to the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land, and it unfolds along a path within the old city.
It begins from the courtyard of Pilate, in a Muslim school, in front of the convent of the Flagellation, and from there, crossing the streets of the old city, it reaches Calvary.
This Franciscan devotion takes its definitive form with Saint Leonard of Port Maurice in the 18th century, and is deeply rooted in the devotion that Saint Francis had for the Passion of the Lord and in the invitation to follow in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Via Crucis of Jerusalem has for me a unique and extraordinary value. It is the clearest symbol of what Christian life is today, it is not a Via Crucis in an aseptic environment like a church. It is a Via Crucis in the midst of people who pass by, who sell, who shout, who insult, who spit.
It somehow makes us relive the context in which Jesus walked the way of sorrow and helps us understand that the Christian life places you within a world that constantly challenges you, that does not understand you, that sometimes insults you, that sometimes rejects you. It is in this concrete context that we are called to follow Jesus Christ.
What is the relevance of this form of prayer today?
To teach us to follow Jesus Christ, to discover an announcement that is Gospel, that is joy and hope.
And this joy, this hope comes from realizing how much we are loved by God. The Via Crucis should make us discover how much we are loved by God, because if someone is willing to die for us, it means that he shows us the greatest love and at the same time reveals our dignity, our value, precisely because the Son of God places our life before his own.
The Via Crucis is a powerful opportunity for an examination of conscience, for a review of our life, and above all it places us before the attitude with which Jesus faces this journey to the end, to the moment in which he dies on the cross forgiving and entrusting himself, and it becomes an invitation to conversion.
Therefore I believe it is still a relevant meditation.
This year marks the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi, how does his figure remain relevant and how is it included within this Via Crucis journey?
The relevance of Francis of Assisi is evident to all because he is first of all a man who set out in search and allowed himself to be transformed by the experiences he lived. From the youthful experience of going to war, from the encounter with the poor and the lepers, from embracing the Gospel sine glossa, that is, literally, but without becoming a fundamentalist.
Francis of Assisi does not prove it to us, but shows us that living the Gospel is possible, removing all the excuses of those who dismiss the evangelical proposal as a utopia for idealistic souls.
The texts that accompany the Via Crucis deepen the essential themes of Franciscanism, and help us grasp the existential value of following in the footsteps of Jesus.
Alessandro Caspoli
