Traditional Popes have performed the ritual on 12 Christian men to represent the 12 disciples of Jesus.
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The change, announced on Thursday (Jan. 20), reflects Francis’ own groundbreaking gesture when, just a month after his election in 2013, he washed the feet of young people – including women and Muslims – at a youth detention center outside Rome. “I therefore decree that the section according to which those persons chosen for the washing of the feet must be men or boys, so that from now on the pastors of the Church may choose the participants in the rite from among all the members of the People of God”.
Pope Francis washes the foot of a female inmate during the Holy Thursday Mass at Rebibbia prison in Rome in this April 2, 2015, file photo.
Pope Francis also wrote a letter to Cardinal Sarah in which he says that “after careful consideration” he has decided to make the change to the Roman Missal.
In a letter dated December 2014 and addressed to Cardinal Robert Sarah, the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, the pope said the rubric of the Roman Missal, which mentions only men as participants in the foot-washing rite, should be changed so that priests can choose from all members of the church.
The Catholic Church believes that episode, on the night before Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, marks the formal institution of the all-male priesthood. It nevertheless… reinforces the trend which has seen priests increasingly surrounded by women during Mass, serving, doing the readings, and as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.
Whereas before, the passage referred to the “men who have been chosen”, it will be changed to read, “Those chosen from among the People of God”.
“This is great news, a wonderful step forward”, Erin Hanna, co-director of the U.S.-based Women’s Ordination Conference, told Reuters.
In his letter to the prelate Francis expressed his “intention of improving the way the rite is performed so that it fully expresses the meaning of the gesture carried out by Jesus during the Last Supper, his giving of himself until the very end for the salvation of the world, his boundless charity”. With his decree, Francis has said they should be representatives of the community: meaning men and women, young and old, healthy and sick, clergy and laity.
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He said the rite has endured various changes and modifications throughout the church’s history.
