In Maundy Thursday ceremonies at St. Peter’s Basilica, the American pontiff washed the feet of twelve priests, condemned violence as a distortion of God’s image, and warned of a “dark hour” gripping the world.
Pope Leo XIV opened the Easter celebrations on Maundy Thursday with a solemn denunciation of human violence, declaring it a form of blasphemy when a person “wants to win by killing his equals”.
Speaking during the Mass of Coena Domini, the celebration that inaugurates the Easter rites, Leo said Christ’s act of washing his disciples’ feet was a purification not only of false ideas about God but of humanity’s most distorted self-image — one that equates greatness with domination and strength with the capacity to inflict fear.
“Jesus purifies our image of man, who considers himself powerful when he dominates, who wants to win by killing his equals, who considers himself great when he is feared.”
— Pope Leo XIV, Mass of Coena Domini
The American pontiff called on the faithful to follow Jesus’s example “of dedication, service, and love.” Standing before what he described as “a humanity on its knees because of so many examples of brutality,” Leo urged believers to kneel alongside the oppressed “as brothers and sisters.”
Leo framed Christ as “the authentic criterion” of both divine and human truth — one who “removes all the masks of the divine and the human.” Crucially, he noted, Jesus offered this example not in a moment of triumph but “on the night he was betrayed, in the darkness of misunderstanding and violence,” making it clear that divine love is not conditional on human goodness.
The ritual of the washing of the feet
Explaining the ritual before performing it, Leo said the simple instruments of the rite — water, basin, and apron — signify something far greater than moral example. God, he argued, “gives us his own form of life,” and in washing feet “makes the condition of the servant his own,” directly undermining “the worldly criteria that soil our conscience.”
He acknowledged the persistent human temptation to seek a God who “serves us,” who “makes us win” and proves as useful as money and power. True divine omnipotence, he countered, is expressed precisely through humility, through “the free and humble gesture of washing our feet.”
Earlier in the day, during the Chrism Mass, Leo had struck an equally urgent tone. Describing the world as torn apart by forces of destruction, he nonetheless offered a vision of renewal rooted not in power but in witness.
“In a world torn between powers that devastate it, there is a new people, who are not victims, but witnesses,” the American pontiff told the congregation. He called on the Church to “renew our ‘yes’ to this mission, which calls for unity and brings peace,” and declared that true transformation comes from within: “In this way the imperialistic occupation of the world is interrupted from within, the violence that until now has been the law is unmasked.”
