16 April,2017 10:01 AM IST | | Agencies
Pope Francis deplored the suffering of migrants, victims of racism and persecuted Christians as some 20,000 worshippers gathered at Rome's Colosseum to hear his Good Friday prayer
Pope Francis presides the Way of the Cross torchlight procession on Good Friday. Pic/AFP
Rome: Pope Francis deplored the suffering of migrants, victims of racism and persecuted Christians as some 20,000 worshippers gathered at Rome's Colosseum to hear his Good Friday prayer.
"Christ, our only saviour, we turn towards you this year with eyes lowered in shame," the pope on Friday told the crowds outside the former gladiators' battleground, their faces lit by candlelight.
"Shame for all the images of devastation, destruction and shipwrecks which have become ordinary in our lives," Francis said in an apparent reference to Mediterranean migrant disasters that have left at least 590 people feared people dead this year.
The pope also spoke of the child abuse scandals that have rocked Catholicism in recent years, expressing "shame for all the times when bishops, priests and the religious have scandalised and hurt" the Church.
