Pilgrims Join Good Friday Observances

Thousands of Christian pilgrims, some weighted down by wooden crosses, Friday retraced Jesus’ last steps on Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa, marking Good Friday and the start of Easter in the Holy Land.

At the Vatican, thousands more attended observances at St. Peter’s Basilica and in the huge square fronting the edifice. Inside, Pope John Paul II heard the confession of 11 ordinary worshipers selected at random under a practice initiated by the pontiff in 1980.

In the evening, the pontiff, carrying a six-foot wooden cross, led a torch-lit procession through the ruins of the ancient Colosseum.

In Jerusalem, meantime, there were fewer visitors than in previous years and local shopkeepers said it appears that thousands of tourists had been kept away by fears of terrorism.

“I can’t say if there are 20% or 30% fewer but it is clear there are fewer pilgrims this year than last,” said an official of the Christian Information Center at Jaffa Gate, inside the walled Old City.

The center, which arranges lodgings and tours for church groups, received a number of cancellations. “They were uneasy about coming at a time of hijackings and other problems,” the official said.

Official Israeli figures showed that about 55,000 pilgrims are spending Easter in the Holy Land.

There has never been a terrorist attack in Israel during Easter, Christmas or any other major Christian observance, sources there said. Israeli officials attribute this to the stepped-up security precautions during religious holidays.

Visits by pilgrims and other foreigners to Israel have been down since last October’s hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, in which an American passenger was killed.

There was no tension in the overwhelmingly Arab Old City during Friday’s observances. Israeli troops patrolled the ancient stone alleys but generally kept a low profile.

Throughout the morning, groups from around the world shuffled along the Via Dolorosa--”the street of sorrow”--stopping to pray at the 14 Stations of the Cross between St. Stephen’s Gate and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditionally accepted site of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection. They included African nuns, French country priests and large delegations from predominantly Catholic Latin America.

Latin chants sounded through the maze of narrow streets as the main procession of Franciscan monks, custodians of the holy sites, escorted church dignitaries to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

During Vatican services at St. Peter’s, John Paul spent 90 minutes in a confessional box normally used by a German priest, Father Adalberto Heussinger.

Among those who confessed their sins to the Pope were an Italian baby-sitter named Angela, a nun from Zaire, a man from the Pope’s native Poland, a Spanish boy, a nun from Ecuador and a family of three from Palermo, Sicily.