Vatican commends Pope’s Holy Thursday actions

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Although ‘the rubrics do specify males,’ for feet washing in Our Lord’s Supper ritual on Holy Thursday, Pope Francis made a ‘simple gesture of a father who desired to embrace those who were on the fringes of society’ by including female prisoners.

As bishop of Rome, he granted a grant a dispensation for good reason—to avoid excluding the young women as he reached out to the fringes of society, according to the Vatican—but he has not formally changed the rubric, therefore everyone (including the Pope in other circumstances) is still bound by it, until such times as it is changed.

Full report: sconews.co.uk/news/27200/vatican-commends-popes-holy-thursday-actions/
 
If nothing else, I find great hope in a Pope who is willing to go against the rubric.

Exclusion of anyone in the feet-washing goes against the spirit of the Gospel. We are called to love and serve everyone.

In our parish, we had come to the point of needing a new chapel because we had so many people coming to mass. We then got a new priest who emphasized rubrics, and mass attendance collapsed to 25% of what it had been. People who were dedicated to communion but could not take his attitude took 20-40 minutes out of their Sundays to go to a different parish. People who were less dedicated simply stopped going to mass.

It makes sense to be culturally sensitive. A priest washing the feet of a woman in a culture where such an act would be considered sexually evocative would be distracting from the message. The rubric would apply in such a place.

Changing the rubric and making it so that all persons can be included in the feet-washing would be a wonderful symbolic gesture. On the other hand, if the Pope was simply saying, by example, to apply rubrics when culturally necessary and ignore them when they communicate that “law is more important than people”, then it may be okay to leave the rubric untouched for tradition’s sake. This diminishes the importance of many rubrics, which is certainly the practice.

If I had my druthers, I would have the rubric changed.
 
It is good not to cast aside all traditions. It is also good to remember Christ’s words…
“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
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Quite honestly, I think this is a great verse for traditionalists who might be uncomfortable with Pope Francis being less concerned with the “high” style than Benedict was. They should take heart and realize that style is style. The teaching does not change and Christ affirmed many of the truths Judaism taught.
He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
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Pope Francis might change things around the margins to broaden the appeal of the Church. The doctrine is going nowhere.
 
OneSheep said:
Exclusion of anyone in the feet-washing goes against the spirit of the Gospel.
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No it doesn’t. We’re called to love and serve everyone, not to give everyone a prominent place in the liturgy (if we were then Pope Francis would have violated the “spirit of the gospel” by only washing the feet of twelve).
 
lizardley said:
As bishop of Rome, he granted a grant a dispensation for good reason…
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This is as I thought…The Pope granted a dispensation. If anyone can do that, he can!

It was an unusual circumstance, perhaps one not well-thought out beforehand (after all, he made the decision right after being elected, and hasn’t had one second of extra time since then to think anything through, plus , he did this kind of thing in Argentina where the vast majority of the population is Catholic and he wasn’t likely to encounter Muslim’s at his Masses)…so he granted dispensations for that particular situation.

Nothing has changed for the rest of us.

However, I have to say that many of the very faithful and orthodox priests in my diocese have been washing the feet of women for decades. Is it possible that the canon is referring to mankind and not just male persons? Someone w/ a background in Canon law can answer that…and I bet there will be different answers.
 
opus101 said:
However, I have to say that the very faithful and orthodox priests in my diocese have been washing the feet of women for decades. Is it possible that the canon is referring to mankind and not just malepersons?
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It’s referring to men, however, as the Scotish Catholic in the article said, a bishop can dispense from this (although only the Pope can dispense from the requirement that they be members of the faithful).
 
OneSheep said:
Exclusion of anyone in the feet-washing goes against the spirit of the Gospel.
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It depends if the emphasis of the celebration is on the Priesthood or on the general sense of the scripture. Those who oppose the dispensation are used to the event emphasizing the ordination of the 12 Apostles, and the fact that Jesus washed their feet on the night of their ordination. Since the Apostles were men, and the Church does not ordain women, it might seem like a plug for women’s ordination (to some people) if women are included in the ceremony.

I know this is not so in my diocese, where the Bishop and many priests are not at all for the ordination of women, and yet, they include women in the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday.

It has been pointed out by a few that it is really the Chrism Mass that emphasizes the Priesthood to the exclusion of others, when they renew their promises. Therefore, sometimes the bishop (and in this case, the Pope) grant a dispensation for the foot washing.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
 
Why such a stress on rubrics? Surely, they serve a purpose, and it would not be good to totally ignore them; as it cannot be right to make out of them unchallengeable truths or unadaptable rules. Rubrics are just rubrics. They are not God’s commandments, and they are not the Gospel. They are tools at the service of the mystery of God’s salvific love that we celebrate. They should helps us to become aware of that mystery; however, sometimes they may become an obstacle to that, making it impossible even to touch the mystery.
Rubrics are not divine and they are not eternal. Throughout two thousand years of liturgy in the life of the Church, they changed many times. Instead of so many questions of things that are not essential, we should allow ourselves to be challenge by the prophetic actions of Pope Francis. When we worship, we must worship “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:24).
When it came to show love, mercy and compassion, Jesus cared very little about the little rules that were so important for certain people.
 
devoutchristian said:
No it doesn’t. We’re called to love and serve everyone, not to give everyone a prominent place in the liturgy (if we were then Pope Francis would have violated the “spirit of the gospel” by only washing the feet of twelve).
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So you think if Mary was there with them that night, Jesus would not have washed her feet?
 
malambo said:
sometimes they may become an obstacle to that, making it impossible even to touch the mystery.
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The Council of Trent anathemized those who said that the Church’s rules could be a hinderance to the spiritual life of the faithful.
shelby_sun said:
So you think if Mary was there with them that night, Jesus would not have washed her feet?
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No, there’s a reason we only wash 12 people’s feet.
 
devoutchristian said:
The Council of Trent anathemized those who said that the Church’s rules could be a hinderance to the spiritual life of the faithful.

No, there’s a reason we only wash 12 people’s feet.
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Yes, I know the reason, but you don’t think that if Mary were there Jesus would have washed her feet also as an act of respect and kindness. She was also a disciple of Christ, the biggest disciple.
 
As far as I understand there was only about 50 children whose feet could be possibly washed.If we take for granted that love is the leading factor, then the feet of all should have been washed. Other wise it is sheer discrimination, inconsistent with love. According to me the basic problem is that we are unable to understand the reason behind a tradition. We are either iconoclasts or mere traditionalists. First we should be lovers of Christ, then his Church, which is primarily the faithful, then all others. As Christians our love should be Christian otherwise we will approve lesbian love, extra marital unions, contraceptives, abortion, artificial equalities which is against nature etc and end up dissolving the Catholic faith. Of course love of the poor and understanding them cannot be equated with senseless and misplaced love. We people will find so many theories and fashions which could subtly give excuse for not helping the poor more particularly in the Catholic or Christian fraternity and destroy the true spirit of the Gospel. We opted for monarchy and aristocracy as it was then the fashion. Then we opted for democracy and the so called social justice as it is the prevalent fashion. Instead of going after worldly fashions., we should try to follow the Gospel and love Christ and help the people whom he himself taken sides with. I am certain that at least there will be succor to the poor and the downtrodden, the sick and the underprivileged.
 
OneSheep said:
If nothing else, I find great hope in a Pope who is willing to go against the rubric.

Exclusion of anyone in the feet-washing goes against the spirit of the Gospel. We are called to love and serve everyone.

In our parish, we had come to the point of needing a new chapel because we had so many people coming to mass. We then got a new priest who emphasized rubrics, and mass attendance collapsed to 25% of what it had been. People who were dedicated to communion but could not take his attitude took 20-40 minutes out of their Sundays to go to a different parish. People who were less dedicated simply stopped going to mass.

It makes sense to be culturally sensitive. A priest washing the feet of a woman in a culture where such an act would be considered sexually evocative would be distracting from the message. The rubric would apply in such a place.

Changing the rubric and making it so that all persons can be included in the feet-washing would be a wonderful symbolic gesture. On the other hand, if the Pope was simply saying, by example, to apply rubrics when culturally necessary and ignore them when they communicate that “law is more important than people”, then it may be okay to leave the rubric untouched for tradition’s sake. This diminishes the importance of many rubrics, which is certainly the practice.

If I had my druthers, I would have the rubric changed.
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I think you miss the point: to exclude the girls would have been awkward given that the pope was reaching out to kids who are in the same trap. Some happen to be girls.
 
Dr. Peters, eminent canonist, thinks this is just going to fuel the fires of antinomianism.
 
YoungTradCath said:
Dr. Peters, eminent canonist, thinks this is just going to fuel the fires of antinomianism.
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Only to those who are ignorant of the fact that dispensations can be given for unusual circumstances.

Believe me, explanations and clarifications will be forthcoming.
 
devoutchristian said:
No it doesn’t. We’re called to love and serve everyone, not to give everyone a prominent place in the liturgy (if we were then Pope Francis would have violated the “spirit of the gospel” by only washing the feet of twelve).
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Agreed. The foot washing on Holy Thursday was designed to be a “reenactment” of what Jesus did in the upper room the night before he died, but in all reality according to the rubrics, it doesn’t have to be done at all. To me, it’s not something that I get all puffed up about, I think Catholic Christians understand that we are to serve everyone. We have always washed women’s feet on Holy Thursday, but only because we couldn’t find all males. The only danger that I can see, is opening up a can of worms with the liturgy in general. I am sure that Pope Francis did NOTHING that could in any way be illicit, I think it was a beautiful gesture, but am also afraid that it may give Priests and Bishops that don’t like the turn back to tradition the green light to do their own thing. Believe me, I have seen that done in my own neck of the woods years back when things were not so tightly put together.
 
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