In celebration of Holy Thursday, Catholic priests around the world perform the ceremonial washing of the feet just like Jesus did before the Last Supper. The humbling reenactment is all the more profound when the leader of the church, Pope Francis, chooses to wash the feet of people at a refugee center outside of Rome. And that's exactly what he did this year.
The Pope showed his support for refugees fleeing violence by choosing four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan, and a Hindu from India to be part in the feet washing ceremony. They were part of the 12 people meant to symbolize the 12 apostles. He also changed the rules to allow for the washing of the feet of women. Three of whom were Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants and an Italian woman who works at the refugee center.
"We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace,” said the Pope during the mass. "All of us, together: Muslims, Hindi, Catholics, Copts, Evangelicals. But brothers, children of the same God. We want to live in peace, integrated.”
It is not the time the Pope did this. Shortly after his election to the Papacy, Francis washed the feet of women and Muslims at a juvenile detention center. The act backs up his condemnations of anti-Muslim sentiment building in the West.
By washing the feet of migrants and refugees, the Pope elevated the importance of the global crisis and displayed the need for people to do more to support the millions of refugees around the world. It is no mistake that this year's theme set out by the church is mercy.
“As priests we identify with people who are excluded,” he said at a morning mass at St Peter's Basilica. “We remind ourselves that there are countless masses of people who are poor, uneducated, prisoners, who find themselves in such situations because others oppress them.”
It is in many ways a sharp rebuke to the European Union deal with Turkey to return migrants and refugees attempting to enter Europe. Aid groups pulled out of some opperations in protest to the plan and other activists say that it puts some groups, especially women, at greater risk.