Our servant pope: wearing a deacon stole to wash feet

An alert reader sent these my way: snapshots from Pope Francis this afternoon.

A report from Associated Press: 

Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 elderly and disabled people Thursday – women and non-Catholics among them – in a pre-Easter ritual designed to show his willingness to serve others like a “slave.”

Francis’ decision in 2013 to perform the Holy Thursday ritual on women and Muslim inmates at a juvenile detention center helped define his rule-breaking papacy just two weeks after his election. It riled traditionalist Catholics, who pointed to the Vatican’s own regulations that the ritual be performed only on men since Jesus’ 12 apostles were men.

But as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently performed the ritual on women – a practice that he seems intent on keeping up now that he is pope.

The 2014 edition brought Francis to a center for the elderly and disabled in Rome. Francis kneeled down, washed, dried and kissed the feet of a dozen people, some in wheelchairs, some with grossly swollen and disfigur ed feet.

The Vatican didn’t release the exact breakdown of their religious backgrounds, but said they came from various religious confessions. Italian news reports said one was a Libyan Muslim.

Francis told the faithful that he was performing the ritual to remind himself how to serve others, as Jesus did when he washed the feet of his apostles.

“Jesus made a gesture, a job, the service of a slave, a servant,” he said. “And he leaves this inheritance to us: We need to be servants to one another.”

One observation: it’s not uncommon for deacons to assist in the foot washing, and in some places the deacon and priest divide up the duties.  (“He does six and I do six,” one deacon told me.)

Meantime, a reader, observing all that the Holy Father did this afternoon, wrote to me today:

I am astounded. This 78 year old man kneeling down and so lovingly smiling at each person, especially the one whose feet were so gnarled.

What did I ever do to deserve to be alive for Pope Francis?