During Holy Week, the papal ritual of foot washing has repeatedly taken place in prison settings outside Rome, underscoring a longstanding commitment to mercy and inclusion.
The pope has washed the feet of twelve prisoners in a facility near Rome, a tradition he embraced both after his election nine years ago and during his earlier tenure as archbishop of Buenos Aires. This act, performed away from the press and cameras, occurred during a solemn mass in the prison complex, with the pope arriving in the afternoon and departing in the early evening as the prison chaplains described the visit.
Those familiar with Vatican communications noted that the Holy See did not release further details about the visit at the time. Earlier in the day, the pope celebrated Christmas Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. The service highlighted the consecration of holy oil, a ceremony central to priestly ordination rites and the anointing of the sick in parishes across the Italian capital and beyond.
In Buenos Aires, the future pope carried a tradition of visiting places where the vulnerable reside, including prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, or gatherings of marginalized people, particularly on Holy Thursday. This emphasis on outreach has persisted through his career and cast a lasting imprint on his public persona.
In 2017, the pope performed the Holy Thursday washing ceremony at a maximum-security facility in Paliano, a fortress south of Rome. There, twelve prisoners were served, including three women and a Muslim inmate. Paliano stood out as the only Italian prison housing mafiosi who agreed to cooperate with justice in exchange for reduced sentences under the system known as collaborators of justice. The following year, the papal visit shifted to the central Rome prison known as Queen Coeli, where the pope also toured Division VIII, a unit housing inmates convicted of sexual offenses.
The year 2019 saw a Holy Thursday celebration at Velletri Prison near Rome. Nonetheless, the pandemic interrupted the usual ritualized visits, and the memory of those efforts remained a defining image of the pontificate. In subsequent years, the pope continued the tradition during Holy Week, with ceremonies that reflected the theme of service and encounter among those most in need, including those on the margins of society.
One of the most enduring iconic moments associated with this papacy is the image of the pope kneeling to wash the feet of prisoners. It stands as a powerful symbol of humility, solidarity, and the call to serve those who are often forgotten by the wider world. The act has reverberated beyond the walls of the prisons, inviting reflection on mercy, justice, and the dignity of every person. In this ongoing narrative, the pope’s decisions to carry the ritual to places of confinement are consistently framed as a concrete expression of his message aboutcompassion in action and the importance of reaching out to those who are most in need.[citation attribution: Vatican press office]