Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 prisoners
VATICAN city, 13 APR. /Offset. TASS Alexey Bukalov/. Pope Francis during the traditional annual ceremony of Great (clean) Thursday washed the feet of 12 prisoners in the prison of the town of Paliano (province of Frosinone), near Rome. It is reported the press service of the Holy see.
Among the selected prisoners — three women, one former Muslim who is going to be baptized in the summer, as well as Argentinian and Albanian. Three are serving life imprisonment (capital punishment in Italy — approx. TASS) the press service.
“To be there humiliated, insulted and rejected, is the mission from which the Church cannot evade. We may be wrong anyway. We need to remember mercy, and not to forget that we are all sinners and sometimes they themselves are prisoners, not realizing in this report,” said Francis in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica.
As noted, in prison 50 ex-Mafioso who decided to cooperate with the investigation and told police the names of his accomplices in exchange for a reduction of sentence.
This tradition dates back to Tina supper, when Jesus washed the feet of 12 of his disciples-the apostles. Pope Francis in 2013, immediately after the election, moved the ceremony from the Vatican in the penal establishments of Italy, and later in refugee camps.