Pope Benedict XVI chose an
Augustinian nun to author the texts for this year's Way of the Cross
procession on Good Friday, the Vatican announced March 25.
Mother Maria Rita Piccione, a contemplative nun who leads the Federation
of Augustinian Nuns, wrote the texts that will be read at each of the
14 stations, the Vatican statement said.
Each year, the pope selects a different person to author the texts that
mark the steps in the solemn, candlelight ceremony that begins at Rome's
Colosseum and leads toward the nearby Forum and Palatine Hill.
Mother Piccione, who lives in the cloistered convent attached to the
Four Crowned Saints church in Rome, is the third living woman to be
chosen to write the meditations.
The previous two were chosen by Pope
John Paul: Mother Anna Maria Canopi of the Mater Ecclesiae Abbey in
Isola San Guilio, Italy, wrote them in 1993, and Sister Minke de Vries, a
nun in the Protestant community of Grandchamp, Switzerland, wrote the
texts in 1995.
During the ceremony, the pope carries a cross and stops at the stations where a few chosen people read the texts.