"Pontiff strays from script in homily" | Associated Press April 14, 2014
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, marking Palm Sunday in a packed St. Peter’s Square, ignored his prepared homily and spoke entirely off the cuff in a remarkable departure from practice.
Later, he continued to stray from the script by hopping off his popemobile to pose for ‘‘selfies’’ with young people and also sipping tea passed to him from the crowd.
He better be careful or someone is going to take a shot at him.
In his homily, Francis called on people, himself included, to look into their own hearts to see how they are living their lives. ‘‘Has my life fallen asleep?’’ Francis asked after listening to a Gospel account of how Jesus’ disciples fell asleep shortly before he was betrayed by Judas before his crucifixion.
‘‘Am I like Pontius Pilate, who, when he sees the situation is difficult, washes my hands?’’
As long as you wash your feet.
He sounded tired as he spoke for about 15 minutes in his homily during Palm Sunday Mass, which solemnly opens Holy Week for the Roman Catholic Church.
That's a bit disconcerting.
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A script from which I wish he would stray:
"Pope Francis washes feet of elderly, disabled in rite" Associated Press April 18, 2014
ROME — Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 disabled and elderly people Thursday — women and non-Catholics among them — in a pre-Easter ritual designed to show his willingness to serve others like a ‘‘slave.’’
I do not think anyone should anybody's slave.
The pope’s decision in 2013 to perform the Holy Thursday ritual on women and Muslim inmates at a juvenile detention center helped define his rule-breaking papacy just two weeks after his election. It riled traditionalist Catholics, who pointed to the Vatican’s own regulations that the ritual be performed only on men since Jesus’ 12 apostles were men.
But as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he frequently performed the ritual on women — a practice that he seems intent on keeping up now that he is pope.
The 2014 edition brought Francis to a center for the disabled and elderly in Rome. He kneeled down, washed, dried, and kissed the feet of a dozen people, some in wheelchairs.
The Vatican said the people who took part in the ritual came from various religions.
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