Good Friday’s meditations on the 14 Stations of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on April 14, 2017, have been entrusted by Pope Francis to a woman: French biblicist Anne-Marie Pelletier.
Mother of three children, Anne-Marie Pelletier, 70, is an expert in biblical hermeneutics and exegesis. She is a recipient of the 2014 Ratzinger Prize of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation. In a press release published on March 31, the Foundation expresses its “high esteem” for the biblicist and rejoices that she was entrusted with “this very important mission.”
The theologian has just contributed to a work published by the Foundation for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s 90th birthday on April 16. The work Cooperatores Veritatis brings together the essays of 13 researchers who have received the Ratzinger Prize since 2011.
Associate Professor of Modern Literature and Doctor of Sciences of Religions from the University of Paris VIII with a thesis entitled “Readings of the Canticle of Canticles, of the Enigma of the Meaning of the Figures for the Reader” (1986), Anne-Marie Pelletier has taught Linguistics and Comparative Literature at the University of Paris X then of Marne-la-Vallee, as well as the Theology of Marriage at the Catholic Institute of Paris. Since 1993, she has been teaching exegesis at the Notre Dame Faculty of the Paris Seminary.
She has also taught the Sciences of Religions at the European Institute (IESR) within the Practical School of Higher Studies. Engaged in the dialogue with Jews, she has carried out research activities as a member of the department “Judaism and Christianity” at the College des Bernardins and was Vice-President of the Jews and Christians Service of Information and Documentation (SIDIC). Anne-Marie Pelletier has taken part, at the Holy See, in different congresses and was an auditor at the 2001 Synod of Bishops on the role of the Bishop. She has also intervened regularly in the monastic world in France and Belgium.
Member of the French Catholic Association for the Study of the Bible (ACFEB) and of the Jean-Marie Lustiger Institute, she is dedicated, in addition, to the issue of woman in Christianity and in the Church., publishing notably the work “Christianity and Women: Twenty Years of History” (Cerf 2001). Among her other publications, there are numerous works of biblical exegesis, including on the Canticle of Canticles and the Book of Isaiah.
The Way of the Cross, which will take place at night with Pope Francis, will begin from the Colosseum at 9:15 pm. It will unfold from within the Colosseum to the slopes of the Palatine.
