ROME: Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of 12 prison inmates, in a Holy Thursday ritual and said the death penalty should be abolished because it is neither Christian nor humane.
For the sixth year running, the pope held the ritual in an institution rather than in the splendours of the Vatican or a Rome basilica, as his predecessors did. Conservatives have criticised him for including women and non-Christians in the rite in the past.
He visited Rome’s Regina Coeli jail to perform the rite, recalling Jesus’s gesture of humility towards his 12 apostles on the night before he died.
The male inmates were from Italy, the Philippines, Morocco, Moldavia, Colombia and Sierra Leone. Eight were Catholic, two were Muslim, one was an Orthodox Christian and one a Buddhist.
Francis wove the sermon of a Mass around the theme of service, saying many wars could have been avoided if more leaders considered themselves servants of the people rather than commanders.
He spoke of the death penalty just before leaving the prison, a former 17th century Catholic convent that was transformed into a jail in 1881.
“A punishment not open to hope is not Christian and not humane,” he said in response to closing comments by the prison director. “Each punishment has to be open to the horizon of hope, so the death penalty is neither Christian nor humane,” he said.
Since his election in 2013, Francis has several times called for an worldwide ban on capital punishment, prompting criticism from Church conservatives, particularly in the US. The 1.2 billion-member Church allowed the death penalty in extreme cases for centuries, but the position began to change under Pope John Paul, who died in 2005.
Francis asked that the Church’s new position be better reflected in its universal catechism.