Vatican City, Apr 13, 2022 / 10:15 am
On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis will celebrate Mass at a prison outside of Rome, where he will wash the feet of 12 prisoners.
The Mass of the Lord’s Supper will take place at the prison of Civitavecchia, a port town around 50 miles northwest of Rome, according to a press release from an Italian association of prison chaplains.
With the private Mass, Pope Francis continues a custom he started in 2013, shortly after becoming pope, of celebrating the Holy Thursday liturgy in a prison or juvenile detention center.
Father Raffaele Grimaldi, a representative of Italy’s prison chaplains, said: “We are grateful to the Holy Father for having chosen, once again, an existential periphery, a place of proximity, to send the world a message of closeness and hope.”