Vatican announces pope’s plans for Holy Thursday

From CNS:

Pope Francis will celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at a Rome rehabilitation facility for the elderly and people with disabilities.

He will preside over the Holy Thursday evening Mass and foot-washing ritual at the Father Carlo Gnocchi Foundation’s Our Lady of Providence Center on the outskirts of Rome, the Vatican announced April 8.

Last year, the pope celebrate the Holy Thursday liturgy at Rome’s Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center, where he washed the feet of young male and female offenders.

Moving the Holy Thursday evening ceremony out of either St. Peter’s Basilica or the Basilica of St. John Lateran marked a change in papal tradition, but it reflected the traditional practice of then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires. The future pope used to celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper — which reflects on the call to imitate Christ by serving one another — in prisons, hospitals or shelters for the poor and marginalized.

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