While popes have for centuries washed the feet of the faithful on the day before Good Friday, never before had a pontiff washed the feet of a woman. That one of the female inmates at the prison in Rome was also a Serbian Muslim. Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 inmates aged 14 to 21, among them the two women, the second of whom was an Italian Catholic.
“There is no
better way to show his service for the smallest, for the least fortunate,” said Gaetano
Greco, a local chaplain.
The pontiff, who has largely disregarded
protocol since his election earlier this month, urged his fellow clerics before
the ceremony to prioritise the poor.
“We need to
go out to the outskirts where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that
longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters,” he said at a
mass in St Peter’s Basilica. “It is not in soul-searching or constant
introspection that we encounter the Lord.”
Francis, the first leader of the
Catholic Church from Latin America, led a mass with a mixed group of young
offenders at the Casal del Marmo prison outside of Rome.
The 76-year-old, who was archbishop of Buenos Aires until chosen as
pope, has already made a name for himself as a champion of the disadvantaged.
In his homeland of Argentina he was known for his strong social advocacy,
working in slums and shunning the lavish lifestyle adopted by some senior
clerics. He lived in a small flat near the cathedral, flew to the Rome conclave
in economy class, and chose to travel with his fellow cardinals by minibus
rather than in the papal limousine.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio - as Pope
Francis was previously known - had already washed and kissed the feet of women
in past ceremonies in Argentinian jails, hospitals and old people's homes,
including pregnant mothers and AIDS patients.
Before performing the traditional feet
washing, in his first general audience on Wednesday, Francis called on the
world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to reach out to “lost sheep” over the coming
days.
“Holy Week challenges us to step outside
ourselves so as to attend to the needs of others: those who long for a
sympathetic ear, those in need of comfort or help,” Francis told thousands of
faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square.
On Good Friday, Francis will recite the Passion of Christ – the story of
the last hours of Jesus’s life – in St Peter’s Basilica, before presiding over
the Via Crucis ceremony by the Colosseum, where thousands of Christians are
believed to have been martyred in Roman times. Francis is also expected to take
part in the procession and even carry the wooden cross on his shoulder for part
of the way.
On Saturday, the pontiff will take part
in an evening Easter vigil in St Peter’s Basilica, and on Easter Sunday the he
will celebrate Easter mass in front of tens of thousands of pilgrims in St
Peter’s Square and then pronounce the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to
Rome and the world.
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