Pope washes and kisses feet of 12 sick and disabled people

2014-04-18 377

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)

STORY: Pope Francis on Thursday evening traveled to a Church-run rehabilitation center on Rome's outskirts for a service where he washed, dried and kissed the feet of 12 sick and disabled people at a traditional Holy Thursday ceremony.

Holy Thursday commemorates the day Jesus founded the priesthood at the Last Supper with his apostles before he was betrayed and arrested on the night before his crucifixion.

The foot washing service honors Jesus' gesture of humility towards his apostles on the night before he died.

The 12 ranged in age from 16 to 86 and included four women. Among them were 75-year-old Muslim man, Hamed, a Libyan businessman who suffered severe brain damage in a car accident and Giordana, 27, from Ethiopia who suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

Previous popes always held the ceremony either in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican or Rome's Basilica of Saint John Lateran and only included 12 Catholic men