Viri selecti... (Select [adult and masculine] men)! are called for for the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual.
Pope Francis is the Supreme Pontiff and he can make mistakes. Washing women and children's feet as a sign of the Holy Thursday institution of the Ministerial Priesthood Sacrament is a Papal error! In this the Holy Father is feeding the liturgical and doctrinal confusion which his two predecessors did so much to correct. His exaggerated emphasis on the title of "Bishop of Rome" is also feeding the anti-papal bias of many heretics within and outside the Church.
The Eponymous Flower observes that Pope Francis, who does not genuflect at Mass, painstakingly gets on his knees to break the liturgical norms. Here one is reminded of the scriptural injunction: "It is obedience I want and not sacrifice." The Pope can determine the Liturgical disciplines of the Church, but for him to break the standing disciplines for personal or ideological preference is the dismantling of the entire disciplinary system. He is continuing the liturgical abuse he practiced as cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires for the entire episcopal college and worldwide presbyterate to witness with the whole world.
The message is clear! Personality and political correctness over liturgical discipline. Welcome to the pre-Woytila/Ratzinger church of ministerial dictatorship opposed to obedience.
On a positive note, Psalm 145 (Vulgate) seems to express Pope Francis' priestly emphasis.
Trust in God Alone
Alleluia. Praise the Lord, O my soul; I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God while I live. Put not your trust in princes, in man, in whom there is no salvation. When his spirit departs he returns to his earth; on that day his plans perish. Happy he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, his God, Whom made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; Who keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, fives food to the hungry. The Lord sets captives free; the Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord raises up those that were bowed down; the Lord loves the just. The Lord protects strangers; the fatherless and the widow he sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts. The Lord shall reign forever; your God, O Sion, through all generations. Alleluia.
