Thousands Observe Good Friday Rites : Pilgrims Follow Jesus’ Path; Pope Hears Confessions

Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem retraced Jesus’ last footsteps, Pope John Paul II heard the confessions of 11 randomly picked Roman Catholics in the Vatican and crucifixions were staged in the Philippines and Kenya as Christendom marked Good Friday.

In South Africa, bishops led 600 cross-bearing worshipers on a dawn procession through the center of Durban and held services to pray for the release of thousands of people detained without trial.

In Jerusalem, thousands of Christian pilgrims walked in the footsteps of Jesus Christ along the Via Dolorosa leading to the traditional site of the Crucifixion.

In Rome, seven Italians, women from Malta and Australia as well as an Ethiopian refugee and a Vietnamese seminarian were chosen at random for the honor of confessing to the Pope. He began a tradition of hearing Good Friday confessions after he was elected in 1978.

5 Crucified Near Manila

In the Philippines, Asia’s only Christian nation, three men and two women were crucified near Manila.

Thousands watched as men dressed as Roman soldiers hammered nails into the hands and feet of the five before their crosses were raised aloft.

Hundreds of penitents dragged heavy wooden crosses on the streets while others flogged themselves with bamboo strips to draw blood.

Lucila Reyes, a 28-year-old faith healer, hung for about an hour from a cross at the edge of a rice field in Bulacan. She was crucified for the 11th time in as many years.

Similar mortification rites in memory of the torture and Crucifixion of Jesus took place elsewhere in the Philippines.

In Kenya, a religious extremist was found nailed to a cross in a poor suburb of the port of Mombasa, police said.

David Mugo, 30, a street hawker who was prevented from crucifying himself in 1984, was taken to a hospital.

In today’s procession in South Africa, clergy and relatives of detainees lifted 60 crosses into the air, representing the 60 people believed to be detained in Durban.

Prayers Not Prohibited

South Africa last week banned protests against detentions under a national state of emergency but later said that the order did not prohibit prayers for those detained.

Israeli tourism officials said they expected 70,000 tourists to visit the Holy Land for Easter and this week’s Jewish Passover holiday, a rise of about 25% from last year, when many pilgrims stayed away for fear of guerrilla attacks.

Using their Bibles to guide them, pilgrims from many lands followed the Via Dolorosa and stopped to pray at the 14 Stations of the Cross inside the walled Old City.