By Paulina Guzik , OSV News
(OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV will wash the feet of 12 priests on Holy Thursday during the “In Coena Domini” — the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper — on April 2 at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.
“Eleven of them are priests who were ordained last year by Pope Leo XIV,” the Vicariate of Rome said in an April 1 announcement. Father Renzo Chiesa, the 12th priest, “is the spiritual director of the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary,” the announcement said.
The decision restores the traditional practice of popes where the Holy Father, in his role as Bishop of Rome, marks the start of the Sacred Triduum at his diocesan cathedral.
Rome-based Dominican Father Patrick Briscoe, general promoter of social communication for the Dominican Order, said that for him as a priest, “it’s something very encouraging because Holy Thursday is the night of institution of the priesthood. And the washing of the feet by the pope conveys his love for priestly service.”
In the case of men whose feet Pope Leo will wash, Father Briscoe said, “these are men that (the pope) himself ordained, which is a beautiful sign of (the priests’) closeness with the bishop, which matters for every priest who’s serving.”
Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, longtime personal secretary for St. John Paul II, told OSV News April 1 that John Paul would occasionally have priests among those whose feet he washed, but that the people chosen for the occasion were mostly “elderly people from nursing homes … especially poor people.” Among them, a priest would be present, he said.
“This is absolutely a personal initiative of the current pope — the (washing of feet of) priests,” Cardinal Dziwisz told OSV News.
In 1992, among the priests whose feet were washed by the Polish pontiff was then-Father Slawomir Oder, the future postulator of the sainthood cause of Karol Wojtyla (St. John Paul II).
“It was a gesture that to this day deeply moves me,” now-Bishop Oder of Gliwice, Poland, told Polish Catholic magazine Gosc Niedzielny in 2019.
“It was authentic, it engaged him completely, and I truly felt like Peter, who told Jesus, ‘You will never wash my feet.'” Washing the young priest’s feet was a gesture of love for the priesthood and respect for every priest, Bishop Oder recalled.
During his 13-year pontificate, Pope Francis made the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper and the washing of feet into one of its distinct hallmarks. Instead of celebrating Mass at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, he often visited prisons, where he washed the feet of the underprivileged and celebrated Mass for them.
In 2013, for Pope Francis’s first papal celebration of Holy Thursday, he went to Rome’s Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center, where he washed the feet of young male and female offenders. In 2024, the last time Pope Francis washed feet on Holy Thursday, he washed the feet of 12 women at a prison in Rome during a ceremony — the first time the pope only has washed the feet of women. In 2025, Pope Francis was too ill to participate in Holy Week liturgies, and he died Easter Monday.
With Pope Leo’s decision to celebrate Mass at the Basilica St. John Lateran, Father Briscoe said, “Pope Leo is communicating his understanding of his role as the Bishop of Rome.”
But the Dominican priest cautioned viewing Pope Leo’s decision as a critique of Pope Francis.
“The rite itself, the foot washing, communicates humble service, which was the hallmark that was so touching from Pope Francis’ famous gesture,” Father Briscoe said. “Pope Leo’s decision to wash the feet of priests not only puts him in continuity with the tradition, but complements his decision to denote in the month of April his prayer intention for priests in crisis.”
In his April prayer intention, Pope Leo prayed for “those going through moments of crisis, when loneliness weighs heavily, when doubt clouds their hearts, and when exhaustion seems stronger than hope.”
“I think there’s a grave concern about the state of the priesthood today,” Father Briscoe told OSV News. “And the priesthood is threatened by rapid secularization and by misunderstandings. And so Pope Leo’s gesture of support is one to strengthen priestly identity throughout the world.”
