ITALY / JERUSALEM: Pope Benedict has washed the feet of twelve men during traditional Holy Thursday service

Pope Benedict on Thursday (April 5) washed and dried the feet of 12 men at a traditional Holy Thursday (April 5) service commemorating Christ's gesture of humility to his apostles on the night before he died. The 79-year-old German Pope, approaching the second Easter of his pontificate, called Catholics to pray for the "purification of the heart". "We pray to help us not keep our lives to ourselves, but to devote them to God," the Pope said. At the midpoint of the service, the Pontiff poured water over the right foot of 12 priests sitting on a raised platform, and dried the foot. The ritual was held in Rome's Basilica of St John's in Lateran, the Pope's cathedral in his capacity as bishop of the Italian capital. Earlier on Thursday (April 5), the Pope in a mass said priests should recognise the faults in their own lives and seek purity from God. Both services on Thursday were to mark the day the Roman Catholic Church commemorates when Christ founded the priesthood at his Last Supper on the night before he died. Meanwhile, Christian worshippers at Jesus's birthtown of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank also performed the traditional "Feet Washing" ceremony. The "Washing of the Feet" ritual is a religious rite observed as an ordinance by several Christian denominations. When sandals were the only footwear in ancient times, it was accustomed that a host would provide water for guests to wash their feet. This tradition is referenced a number of times in both the Old and New Testaments.

ITN Source | April 6, 2007

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