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Pope Francis visited the feminine penitentiary of Rebibbia in Rome on Thursday (March 28) to rejoice the Holy Thursday ritual of ft washing, persevering with the pontiff’s custom of visiting marginalized teams on the Thursday earlier than Easter.
It’s the primary time a pope has washed the ft of a gaggle made up solely of girls.
The penitentiary is among the many largest in Europe and homes 360 ladies and one baby. The inmates have regarded ahead to the pope’s arrival with pleasure, based on jail chaplain Don Andrea Carosella. “For them it is a image of nice consideration, a logo that reveals that the pope thinks about them and is near them,” Carosella advised the information company of the Italian bishops, SIR.
“They want the type of assist that brings hope, an indication, caring, a gesture by somebody who might help them have religion and braveness to go ahead,” Carosella stated. “I believe the pope’s go to affords inspiration for locating energy, discovering braveness.”
The pope stated Mass outdoors, in a big tent the place the ladies and staff of the penitentiary gathered. “Always, all of us, face small failures, large failures, it does not matter, everybody has their very own story,” he stated, “however the Lord all the time waits for us with open arms, and he by no means tires of forgiving us.”
While the Vatican had said that the pope may not carry out the ritual himself because of ache in his legs, Francis washed the ft of the inmates whereas sitting in a wheelchair. The ladies had been positioned on elevated chairs to permit the pope to clean their ft with out bending an excessive amount of. The occasion came about in non-public with no entry for the general public. Pictures present ladies weeping with emotion through the ritual. They hailed from Italy, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Nigeria, Venezuela and the Roma neighborhood, amongst others.
The Catholic Mass in Coena Domini and the washing of the ft are impressed by Jesus’ final supper, when he washed the ft of his disciples. Twelve inmates acted because the apostles, however the different inmates additionally had an opportunity to see the pope. They ready for the occasion by singing songs, doing catechesis with the jail chaplain and reflecting on the religious significance of the papal go to. All the ladies within the penitentiary had been invited to satisfy the pope no matter their jail sentence or background.
Pope Francis began the follow of visiting marginalized teams on Holy Thursday as an alternative of performing the ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica instantly after his election in 2013. He has visited juvenile prisons and facilities for folks residing with bodily and psychological disabilities and has washed and kissed the ft of migrants and refugees. In 2016, Pope Francis issued a liturgical reform permitting ladies to behave because the apostles within the foot washing ritual.
In 2015, the pope visited the Rebibbia ladies’s jail and washed the ft of a number of inmates, together with some ladies.
The pope has devoted the prayer intention for the month of April to “the position of girls,” asking that they “be acknowledged in each tradition, and for the top of discrimination that they expertise in numerous elements of the world.” On April 28, he’ll go to one other ladies’s jail throughout a day journey to Venice, the place the Vatican has arrange a pavilion for the Venice Biennale modern artwork exhibit.
“I wish to say thanks on behalf of all those that stay on this place and endure the privation of their freedom,” stated the director of the penitentiary, Nadia Fontana, in her tackle to the pope. “Your presence right here as we speak is sort of a ray of solar for every of them, which warms the hearts and restores hope of with the ability to begin once more, even when it means ranging from scratch.”
Pope Francis gifted the ladies a portray of the Virgin Mary and Child. He additionally gifted a large chocolate egg and a smaller one to Jairo Massimo, a 3-year-old boy who has been residing within the penitentiary together with his mom for the previous 9 months.
© Religion News Service
