ROME — Pope Francis stayed home on Good Friday instead of presiding over the Stations of the Cross (Viacrucis) at Rome’s Colosseum as previously announced.
“To preserve his health for tomorrow’s Vigil and the Holy Mass on Easter Sunday,” the Vatican Press Office said in a statement, “Pope Francis will follow the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum this evening from the Casa Santa Marta.”
The statement was issued at the last possible moment after the Vatican confirmed the pontiff’s presence just hours earlier. Vatican News seemed to downplay the importance of Francis’s absence by noting that he skipped the Viacrucis ceremony in 2023 as well, being substituted at the Colosseum with Cardinal Angelo de Donatis, the Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome.
The 87-year-old pope has missed a number of activities of late and at times has called on aides to read prepared speeches for him.
Last weekend, for instance, Francis decided at the last minute not to pronounce his Palm Sunday homily, though by Thursday he seemed better, personally celebrating the Chrism Mass in the morning as well as the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
In February, the pope twice canceled all his scheduled activities, with the Vatican Press Office citing a persistent flu as the cause.
In January, Francis attended a meeting in the Vatican with Catholic communicators from France but omitted reading his prepared text because, as he said, “I have a touch of bronchitis and I can’t speak very well.”
These same respiratory troubles also caused him to cancel his trip to Dubai in early December, where he was slated to address the COP28 U.N. Climate Change Conference.
This past week, however, the Vatican confirmed the pope’s intention to travel to the northern Italian city of Venice on April 28, where he plans to greet artists present for the annual Biennale exhibition and inaugurate the Vatican pavilion sponsored by the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
