Way of the Cross

When Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492, there began a new way of the cross, traced for five hundred years in the lives of the poor and oppressed peoples of the Americas. These short meditations on the stations—by such figures as Gustavo Guiterrez, Enrique Dussel, Leonardo Boff, Helder Camara, Elsa Tamez, and Jon Sobrino—reflect on the passion of Christ against the background of conquest. They write, as Virgil Elizondo says in his preface, to "invite our readers to take this journey with us, to share our suffering, to experience our crucifixion, and to taste in anticipation our Easter joy. We invite all—rich and poor, black and brown and white, clerics and lay people—to a profound conversion that will stimulate us to build a better world in the Americas, a world of the new humanity enjoying justice, freedom, and love."

These are powerful meditations on the Way of the Cross which Jesus walks today. They are written by South American, Mexican, Basque, and Spanish teachers and theologians., These penitential meditations reflect the Lenten theme of conversion, calling readers, in solidarity with those who are poor, sick, outcast and oppressed among us, to exchange our hearts of stone for hearts of flesh....., Introduced by the editor's own reflections as well as an opening meditation by G. Gutierrez and concluding with a short meditation by D. H. Camara, these meditations, illustrated with evocative woodcuts, vividly re-enact the Way of the Cross followed by the poor and oppressed in their present-day sufferings., The Stations of the Cross have a strong place in the piety of Latin American and Hispanic Catholics in the United States. This book uses that powerful devotion to reflect on the legacy of injustice and suffering, as well as the passages to new life, which have marked five hundred years of Christianity in the Americas., These penitential meditations reflect the Lenten theme of conversion, calling readers, in solidarity with those who are poor, sick, outcast and oppressed among us, to exchange our hearts of stone for hearts of flesh.

Virgil Elizondo, cited by Time magazine as one of the nation's spiritual innovators, is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and the Graduate Theological Union. In 2007 Rev. Elizondo was the recipient of the Catholic Theological Society of America's John Courtney Murray Award, for distinguished achievement in the study of theology.