Smelly feet

In the Christian tradition each year on the night before Good Friday—that is three days before Easter—we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The pope would visit a prison, kneel down to wash the feet of the prisoners, just as local parishes re-live how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.

As part of the tradition the washing of the prisoners’ feet by the pope is usually televised worldwide. It is a tradition we take as given and celebrate unquestioned. We may even find it beautiful. Prisoners may find the experience profoundly transformative. If we could spare a moment of objectivity, though, we would be scrambling for a logical explanation.

If prisoners’ feet smell no more than yours and mine, why is the washing of their feet spotlighted and televised on Maundy Thursdays? Were the prisoners asked if they would like to wash the pope’s feet as well?

By washing the disciples’ feet Jesus wiped off the contrast and asked us to do the same; we bank on that very same rite to spotlight the contrast instead. We draw superlatives to present that humility in how the greatest bends down to serve people perceived as lowly: not any priest but the pope; not any sinner but the prisoners (suggesting they are lowlier than the lowliest).

Prisons and the judicial system are there to keep our society in order. The system does not prosecute social sinners; it does not send social sinners to prison; it does not put us on trial for badly programing each other. So in some ways prisoners are imprisoned partly for sins committed by the wider society. The fact that prisoners are in there while we are out here is because they are caught and we are not. I can’t claim credit for not stabbing or shooting somebody, because I never reached such a juncture in life. Effectively I am not capable of killing and robbing. It follows that I am no better than those who do.

Protected by the social compartment I grew up in I wasn’t even capable of smoking cigarettes, let alone using drugs. No female in our circle smoked. Females who smoked were regarded as bad women associated to vices of the wildest imagination. It was perfectly fine for males to smoke, attracting no association whatsoever to moral standards or private lives. Later, living in the UK as I started noticing that many of my female friends smoked I came to realize how ridiculous the double standard and the association were–it makes no sense at all. Nevertheless the bias protected a certain demographic—that time, that place—from not only cigarettes but drugs. The same bias spared generations of parents from the prayer most ardent for their daughters never to do drugs. So I can’t claim merit for not doing drugs. It follows that I am no better than those who do.

“Can’t imagine how people can possibly commit such heinous acts; can’t understand what human being would do such a thing, “ we frequently hear. That’s the thing: we can’t imagine so we shouldn’t attempt, we can’t understand as we rightly shouldn’t try, because we are never presented with such junctures. We can’t put ourselves in people’s shoes, because we do not have the pre-requisites.

We owe the incarcerated their dignity. We need to give back what belonged to them.