Stop the press. The Catholic Church has just created history by allowing women to be a part of a sacred Easter ritual normally reserved for men. Who instigated this joyous occasion?
NEW POPE FRANCIS THAT’S WHO!
The Pope has gotten off on the right foot (allow me this one pun, please) with liberal Catholics by breaking church rules that banned females from being included in the ‘washing of feet’ for the Church’s Holy Thursday celebrations.
Here’s a quick history/theology lesson for some context. According to the Catholic Church’s teachings, on the day before Jesus was crucified (Good Friday) he washed the feet of his twelve disciples as an act of service and humility. His disciples were all male.
The day before Good Friday has become known as Holy Thursday. The Catholic Church honors this day by (among other things) having the Pope re-enact this feet-washing scene. As Jesus’ disciples were all male, the Church has only allowed males to be a part of this ritual. You know, just to keep with the Church’s theme of being sexist despite the fact Jesus loved ALL.
This year, in an act of bad-assery, Pope Francis not only included two females in the feet washing ritual but two of the twelve of the feet-washed were Muslim. But wait, there’s more! All of the twelve were inmates at Casal del Marmo facility in Rome, a correctional facility for young people.
Watch a video of this here:
Pope Washes Feet of Inmates, Including Women
As a Catholic who has some pretty big beef with the Catholic Church, the Pope showing some signs of liberalism is the best Easter present ever. Yes, better than chocolate. It wasn’t until 1998 that my church allowed girls to serve as altar servers (Wikipedia can explain this better than me: “An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell and so on”.) When I was deigned equal enough at twelve years of age to roll with the boys up on the altar, that was a pretty awesome Girl Power moment for me.
Let’s hope Pope Francis uses his new Pope-dom to make some more positive changes in the Church. And maybe star in the Arrested Development movie.
Thanks to gawker.com
Images courtesy of AP.com,pocomilitiary.com,huffingtonpost.com
