Pope
Francis performing the rite of the washing of feet at a Holy Thursday
Mass said at Rebibbia prison, Rome, April 2, 2015. Credit: L'Osservatore
Romano.
After spending previous years washing the feet of inmates and
disabled persons on Holy Thursday, this year Pope Francis will celebrate
the liturgy in a welcoming center for migrants and refugees.
The
Pope will say a Chrism Mass at the Vatican before heading to the
Reception Center for Asylum Seekers, or CARA, in Castelnuovo di Porto,
just over 18 miles outside of Rome, on the afternoon of March 24.
He
will arrive to the center around 5 pm, where he will say the Mass of
the Lord’s Supper and wash the feet of 12 migrants welcomed by the
center, many of whom are not Catholic.
The news came in a March
22 article from the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano explaining
the reason why the location was chosen. The article was written by
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the
Promotion of the New Evangelization.
In previous years Pope
Francis has offered the Lord’s Supper Mass on Holy Thursday at a youth
detention center, a rehabilitation center for the disabled, and a large
prison in Rome. This marks the first year he will celebrate the liturgy
at a migrant center.
More than 900 asylum seekers are housed at
the center, virtually all of whom come from sub-Saharan Africa. CARA is
one of the most demanding asylum centers in all of Italy.
In 2015
alone more than 1.1 million migrants fleeing war and violence poured
into Europe, and the influx has continued. Many Syrians seeking to
escape the civil war which has devastated their country for the past
five years enter Europe through Turkey, taking boats to the Greek isles.
With
leaders perplexed as to how to handle the migrant flow, last week a new
deal was struck between the E.U. and Turkey stipulating that all
migrants and refugees who cross into Greece illegally by sea will be
sent back to Turkey once they have been registered and their asylum
claims processed.
In return, the E.U. agreed to take in
thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey, giving the country
early visa-free travel and advancing talks regarding their E.U.
membership negotiations.
The Pope’s decision to celebrate the
Holy Thursday liturgy at the center comes after he has repeatedly pled
on behalf of migrants’ rights in past few weeks.
In his March 16
general audience Francis appealed to world leaders to open their doors
to migrants, lamenting that many are “living a real and dramatic
situation of exile.”
“Far away from their homeland, with their
eyes still full of the rubble of their homes,” these migrants often find
“closed doors” when attempting to enter another country, he said.
The
Pope said that “I like it a lot when I see nations, governments, who
open their hearts and open their doors” to the migrants and refugees
seeking to enter.
Similarly, on Palm Sunday Francis said that
when Christ suffered from the indifference of political leaders in being
sent from Pilate to Herod and then back to the Roman governor, he was
thinking in particular “of so many other people, so many marginalized
people, so many asylum seekers, so many refugees.”
“There are so many who don't want to take responsibility for their destiny.”
He
also offered special greetings to some 6,000 migrants and refugees
during his Jan. 17 Angelus address, which fell on the World Day of
Migrants and Refugees. The day was also celebrated as a special Jubilee
of Migrants as part of Francis’ larger Jubilee of Mercy.
In his
address, the Pope told the migrants that “each one of you carries within
yourself a story, a culture, of precious value; and often unfortunately
experiences of misery, oppression and fear,” and encouraged them not to
give up in the face of difficulties.
During his Sept. 6, 2015
Angelus Francis made an appeal to all the parishes, to religious
communities, to monasteries, and sanctuaries of all Europe to “to
express the concreteness of the Gospel” and welcome a family of
refugees.
The Vatican's two parishes – St. Anne's and St. Peter's – have already welcomed two refugee families.
The
first family, housed by St. Anne's, consists of a father, mother and
two children. Syrian Christians of Catholic Greek-Melkite Church, the
family fled their war-torn city of Damascus and arrived to the Vatican
Sept. 6, the same day as the Pope’s appeal.
The second family,
provided for by St. Peter's, is an Eritrean family, consisting of a
mother and her five children who arrived earlier this year.
