(CNN) -- Pope Francis marked his first Good Friday as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, asking the faithful to follow Jesus' lead. "Christians must respond to evil with good, taking the cross upon themselves as Jesus did," Francis said at a nighttime ceremony marking the Stations of the Cross, also known as Way of the Cross or Via Crucis, at Rome's Colosseum. Francis said the cross represents God's response to evil in the world and that the answer to evil "is the cross of Christ -- a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness." Good Friday, one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar, recalls the day Jesus died on the cross.
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NEW: Pope: Cross represents God's response to evil -- which is love and forgiveness
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He makes these remarks to close a Stations of the Cross ceremony at Rome's Colosseum
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Earlier, he'd participated in a service about the Lord's Passion at St. Peter's Basilica
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Francis spoke to close the ceremony, explaining the meaning of the cross and how @placeholder could apply that in their lives.