Pope Francis visits Italian prison for Holy Week foot-washing ritual

Pope Francis hoists the Godspell book during a Chrism Mass inside St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

Pope Francis has travelled to a prison near Rome to wash the feet of a dozen inmates, a Holy Thursday ritual that symbolises humility and highlights his papacy’s attention to those on society’s margins.

He arrived in a motorcade that included Italian police cars, which entered through a gate of the prison in Civitavecchia, a port city 50 miles north-west of Rome.