The killing has shaken Catholic Church officials, who say they still do not know what led to the assassination or what it means for the church.

"Do we want to share in this message of life," he asked in his homily, "or do we prefer simply to continue standing speechless before events as they happen?"

Authorities said Father Walter Vasquez Jimenez was traveling with parishioners March 29 to officiate a Holy Thursday Mass in San Miguel when their car was stopped by an armed group wearing masks. The other passengers were set free after their belongings were taken, but Father Vasquez was abducted, shot and left to die.

There is hope "because from your cross—the fruit of greed and cowardice of many doctors of the law and hypocrites—came the resurrection," which turned darkness into eternal light and shows that Jesus' love is their hope, Pope Francis said.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida-based farmworker group, led a "Freedom Fast" to draw attention to the epidemic of sexual assault and harassment of farmworker women and to the C.I.W.’s ongoing boycott of the fast-food chain Wendy’s.

The show stars popular singers John Legend as Jesus and Sara Bareilles, who was raised Catholic, as Mary Magdalene, and features 1970s rock figure Alice Cooper as Herod.