Pope John Paul II heard confessions from 11 pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Basilica today in keeping with a Good Friday tradition he began in 1979. In the evening, the pope planned to carry a wooden cross in a torch-lit procession at the Colosseum recalling Christ's walk to his crucifixion on Calvary Hill in Jerusalem. Several hundred people were waiting when John Paul appeared shortly after noon in St. Peter's Basilica and stepped into one of the hand-carved mahogany confessional booths. Over the next 70 minutes, he heard confessions from a family of three Italians, a 40-year-old Italian steelworker and his 53-year-old friend, a 13-year-old Italian boy studying for his confirmation, a 59-year-old contractor from the Netherlands and his 27-year-old daughter, a 22-year-old American student from California, a Nigerian man studying in England, and a Spanish housewife. At the end of the confessions, the pope blessed the hundreds of people present and asked them to join him in prayer.
