In the framework of the pre-Easter Holy week, Pope Francis intends to hold evening, April 13, in a Roman prison, Paliano the rite of the washing of the feet of former Mafioso who repented of his crimes and began cooperating with the law.
First, the Pope will celebrate mass, and then wash the feet of former criminals, wipe them with a towel and kiss, according to La Repubblica reports.
In prison, Paliano are about 50 former members of the mafia, who agreed to testify against his accomplices in exchange for shortening his prison.
“Everyone has the right to be wrong. We were all wrong, one way or another,” said Pope Francis in an interview he gave the newspaper ahead of the ceremony.
Becoming in the spring of 2013 the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis the first dad decided to take out the foot-washing ceremony outside the Vatican. In that year, before Easter in the colony he washed the feet of juvenile offenders, among whom were two Muslims.
In 2014, the Pope washed the feet of the elderly and disabled, in 2015, inmates in a prison, and in 2016 — wards the centre for the detention of migrants.
