Pope Leo carries cross for all 14 stations during Good Friday procession

Pope Leo XIV carried a wooden cross for all of the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on his first Good Friday as pontiff, marking the first time in decades that a pope carried the cross to every station. Inside the Colosseum, Leo lifted the cross and began the rite flanked by two torchbearers, who accompanied him throughout the hourlong procession from inside the Colosseum, through the crowd outside and up steep stairs to the Palantine Hill where he gave the final blessing. For the first two years of his papacy, Benedict XVI carried the cross for the first station inside the Colosseum, then followed other bearers in the procession that ends on a platform on the Palatine Hill.