Doctors and nurses accompany Pope Francis in the Via Crucis procession in the Vatican | World

The participation of the Vatican medical team was a reminder of how the pandemic affected almost all spheres of life.

Francis observed from the steps outside St. Peter’s Basilica that the procession, which included a uniformed police officer, a Padua prison chaplain, and a former inmate, surrounded the central obelisk in the square. The Via Cucis procession evokes the suffering of Jesus on the way to being crucified.

Earlier, at a Good Friday service inside the basilica, the papal preacher said the pandemic alerted people to the danger of being powerful. During this service, as a sign of humble obedience, Pope Francis prostrated himself for a few minutes on the floor of the basilica.

With ordinary believers not allowed in the basilica in accordance with virus containment measures, and while Francis was listening carefully, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa told some prelates, choir members, and several other participants that “only the smallest and most without an element of nature, a virus, to remind us that we are mortal “and that” military power and technology are not enough to save us. ”

Cantalamessa said that when the pandemic ends, “go back to being the” recession “that we most fear.” He said the virus broke “barriers and distinctions of race, nation, religion, wealth and power.”