Pope washes feet of young offenders in prison - including two women - in traditional Easter ritual

Pope Francis washes the feet of a prisoner at the Casal Del Marmo Youth Detention Centre (Getty Images/2013 L'Osservatore Romano)

Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of 12 young offenders at a Rome detention centre yesterday – and for the first time included two women in the traditional Easter ritual.

The pontiff travelled to Casal del Marmo prison for the Holy Thursday Mass commemorating Jesus’s gesture of humility towards his apostles the night before he was crucified.

While Pope Francis, 76, included women in the rite when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, it was the first time women had taken part in a papal Holy Thursday service – and the first time in living memory that it was not held either in St Peter’s Basilica or the Basilica of St John Lateran, the papal cathedral church in the Vatican City.