K of C Roads to Calvary

March 1, 2024

Councils around the world bear witness to the saving Passion of Christ through Via Crucis events

By Elisha Valladares-Cormier

March 1, 2024

Cast members reenact Christ’s Passion during last year’s Via Crucis performance organized by Porta Vaga Council 4072 in Cavite City, Luzon South. (Photo by Ronald Concepcion) — Cast members reenact Christ's Passion during last year's Via Crucis performance organized by Porta Vaga Council 4072 in Cavite City, Luzon South. (Photo by Ronald Concepcion)

The Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, is a devotion that has been prayed for centuries by Catholics wanting to enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s suffering and death. While the first references to the Via Crucis date to the 13th century, the 14 stations we observe today were likely popularized in Spain beginning in the early 17th century before spreading to the rest of Europe and the New World.

Today, public Via Crucis processions — often involving reenactments of the events of the Passion — remain especially popular in areas once colonized by Spain, including Latin America and the Philippines. They are conducted in other countries, too, and many K of C councils in jurisdictions throughout the world play a key role in the public processions.

Porta Vaga Council 4072 in Cavite City, Luzon South, has organized a Via Crucis on the Tuesday of Holy Week since 1974 — an effort recognized by the Supreme Council with an international program award in 2016. The large-scale performance has a considerable impact on the city’s culture, said Past Grand Knight Vonn Rommel Garrido.

“Performing the Passion out in the streets is our own little way of evangelizing people,” Garrido said. “In a society engrossed in technology, bigotry and indifference to others, we hope to penetrate the hearts of spectators so they might realize for themselves God’s absolute mercy.”

Members of Mons. Lázaro Pérez Jiménez Council 17543 in Mérida, Mexico South, support the priests overseeing rural parishes on the Yucatán Peninsula by leading the Stations of the Cross each Good Friday in villages — nearly 100 miles away from Mérida. Local councils have led this effort for 35 years.

As Knights carry a wooden cross to stations throughout each village, “it reinforces the Catholic identity of the community, [helping] the flame of faith remain and grow in each generation,” said Grand Knight Felipe López.

In Poland, councils regularly lead the Stations of the Cross, sometimes as simple reflections, sometimes as elaborate plays. St. Michael the Archangel Council 16105 in Wrocław leads its Good Friday Via Crucis procession along the same route it will take several weeks later for a Eucharistic procession celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi.

“In this way, the Way of the Cross becomes a clear reference to the mystery of the Eucharist,” said District Deputy Michał Bartoszko, a past grand knight of Council 16105. “The bloodless sacrifice offered during every Mass is connected with the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross on Good Friday.”

*****

ELISHA VALLADARES-CORMIER is associate editor of Columbia and a member of Sandusky (Ohio) Council 546.

Students and staff members of Holy Innocents School stand before custom-printed fencing screens donated by Msgr. John Cawley
Council 3629 in Lakewood, Calif., in 2022. The screens provide much-needed privacy to the playground of the school, which is
located in a busy urban neighborhood in Long Beach.

K of C Roads to Calvary

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