Reports: Pope to celebrate Holy Thursday at Rome facility for disabled and the elderly

Pope Francis washes the foot of a young offender during last year’s Holy Thursday Mass at Rome’s Casal del Marmo prison (CNS)

Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Thursday Evening Mass at a facility for disabled and elderly people in Rome, according to reports.

Francis will visit the St Mary of Providence Centre of the Don Gnocchi Foundation in Rome. During the Mass he will wash the feet of 12 disabled and elderly guests.

Last year he visited the Casal del Marmo prison on the outskirts of Rome to celebrate Holy Thursday Mass, which commemorates Jesus’s gesture of humility towards his apostles the night before he died. The Pope washed the feet of 12 juvenile inmates, including two women, one of whom was Muslim.

The former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio included women in the rite when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, and last year’s Mass at the prison was the first time women had taken part in a papal Holy Thursday ceremony.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/04/08/reports-pope-to-celebrate-holy-thursday-at-rome-facility-for-disabled-and-the-elderly/