Good Friday: Pope does televised Q&A on suffering

VATICAN CITY — In an unprecedented move, Pope Benedict XVI held a televised question-and-answer session to mark Good Friday, fielding queries from as far away as Japan, Iraq and the Ivory Coast on topics as wide-ranging as death, violence, intimidation and suffering.

Benedict told a Japanese girl frightened by the devastating quake and tsunami in her homeland that her suffering isn’t in vain and assured a Muslim woman in violence-wracked Ivory Coast of the Vatican’s peace efforts there.

In a prerecorded appearance on Italian state TV, the pope replied to some of a few thousand questions submitted online by Catholics and non-Catholics alike on the solemn day when Christians reflect on the suffering and crucifixion of Christ.

The unusual TV appearance was broadcast a few hours before Benedict was due at a service of prayer and meditation in St. Peter’s Basilica. Later, he was expected at the Colosseum in Rome for the traditional Way of the Cross procession.

Dressed in white robes during the Q&A, Benedict sat at a desk and spoke softly in Italian.

The first question came from Elena, a 7-year-old Japanese girl who told the pope that many children her age were killed in the March 11 disaster and asked why children have to be so sad.

“I also have the same questions: Why is it this way? Why do you have to suffer so much while others live in ease?” Benedict said. “And we do not have the answers but we know that Jesus suffered as you do, an innocent.”

Trying for words of comfort, the pope told her that “even if we are still sad, God is by your side.”

He said Elena should tell herself: “One day, I will understand that this suffering was not empty, it wasn’t in vain, but behind it was a good plan, a plan of love.”

A Muslim woman, speaking from Ivory Coast, where months of political standoff have been marked by deadly fighting, asked the pope: “As an ambassador of Jesus, what do you advise for our country?”

Benedict told her the Vatican was doing what it can and said he asked an African cardinal from among his aides to go to Ivory Coast “to try to mediate, to speak with the various groups and various people to encourage a new beginning.”

“The only path is to renounce violence, to begin anew with dialogue,” the pontiff said.

Another question came from young people in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, where Christians have been fleeing warfare and intense religious persecution.

“We Christians in Baghdad are persecuted like Jesus,” came the question, along with a plea for advice on how to help fellow Christians reconsider their desire to emigrate.

Benedict replied that he prays daily for the Christians in Iraq, and urged them to “have faith, to be patient.”

One woman whose middle-aged son has been in a vegetative state since Easter 2009 wanted to know if his soul had left his body.

Benedict assured the mother that his soul is “still present in his body,” comparing the situation to a guitar with broken strings. “The instrument of the body is fragile like that, it is vulnerable, and the soul cannot play, so to speak, but remains present,” the pope told her. “I am also sure that his hidden soul feels your love deep down.”

The Vatican’s campaign against euthanasia is an important part of Benedict’s papacy. It has condemned those who would remove breathing devices or feeding tubes from people in a vegetative state, although Catholic teaching holds that faithful do not have to use extraordinary means to keep people alive.

An Italian Radical party lawmaker complained that state TV had broadcast the apparent reference to euthanasia while the Italian Parliament is considering a law to permit citizens to draw up “living wills,” the news agency ANSA reported. Lawmaker Marco Beltrandi called the pope’s response “a very grave interference” in a national debate, saying while Benedict had a “perfect right” to espouse his own ideas, the state broadcaster has an obligation to give space to other religions and lay voices.

While the Q&A session departed from the Vatican’s usual Good Friday routine, elsewhere in the world, ancient Christian practices marked the solemn day.

In Jerusalem, Christian pilgrims filled the cobblestone alleyways of the walled Old City to commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion there two millennia ago. Thousands of international visitors and local Christians retraced Christ’s last steps down the Via Dolorosa, which is Latin for the “Way of Suffering.” The route ends at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher, revered as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

“All my life I’ve been waiting for this wish — I’ve been wishing for one day to come here in Jerusalem to worship. I wanted to step where my lord stepped,” said Roshan Futsom, a pilgrim from Toronto, Canada.

The calendars of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches coincide this year, so the sects are marking the holy week together. This has required careful arrangements to avoid conflicts.

Israeli police were deployed in force in the Old City, which contains sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

<em><strong>Associated Press writer Matti Friedman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.</em></strong>