Holy Thursday washing of women's feet now official

Friday, Feb. 26, 2016

At the behest of Pope Francis, the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) issued on Jan. 6 a decree stating that all members of the people of God – including women –may have their feet washed during the evening liturgy of Holy Thursday. This decision was no doubt an outcome of the practice of Pope Francis when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires and since he became pope.

This is a welcome development for the reason that many bishops and pastors had been for years washing the feet of women on Holy Thursday. The Jan. 6 decree clarifies the lingering ambiguity about the legitimacy of the practice. Furthermore, the Vatican had been for some time giving mixed signals on the matter. When Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston asked the CDWDS a couple of years ago about the practice of the washing of women’s feet, he received an unofficial positive answer; meanwhile, the official position of excluding women seemed favored.

I have a few observations and questions about this liturgical development. For one thing, the decree and its commentary allow pastors to forego the ritual of the foot-washing altogether when it states, “The washing of feet is not obligatory during the Holy Thursday Mass.” Furthermore, “It is for pastors to evaluate its desirability according to the pastoral considerations and circumstances that exist.”  No doubt some pastors may grab on to the option to omit the ceremony altogether for no other reason than an ingrained aversion to having women involved in liturgical ceremonial. 

Are there ever circumstances when men only have their feet washed? Possibly in seminaries, male religious houses, and men’s prisons. But I cannot imagine that there would not be some women present who could be included among those whose feet are washed. (The same logic would apply to convents and women’s religious houses.)

The Commentary on the Decree (written by Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the CDWDS) makes a very important distinction between mimetic and anamnetic rituals. Mimetic gestures view the foot-washing action like a play; as, for instance, the Oberammergau Passion Play in South Germany performed every 10 years.  Here the foot-washing is understood to be a repetition of what Jesus did on the first Holy Thursday. The focus is on the past and not so much in the present. 

Anamnetic gestures work differently. They do not neglect the reference to the past, but move to being gestures focused on the present. It is a ritual that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, makes present the risen and glorified Lord. The pastor does not, then, “play” Jesus of Nazareth but represents the risen Christ in the Church today. He washes the feet of a number of people (not necessarily 12) as a sign of his present commitment to his people. 

Crucial in this whole matter is the formation of seminarians. Those who know seminarians today tell me that many seek to return to an imagined “traditional” understanding of the liturgy and its practice. This would mean excluding girls from ministry at the altar and from the role of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion – which would then mean the omission of the chalice for the people completely.

The matter of the washing of feet of women is likely to be omitted on Holy Thursday by a negative attitude toward the role of women in the liturgy generally. Seminary faculty should make known in a positive spirit the fundamental  contents of the recent decree and the fundamental theology underlying it.