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."