STORY: Francis, who recently curtailed his speaking engagements because of fatigue related to bouts of bronchitis and influenza, traveled to Rome's Rebibbia prison, in a run-down area on Rome's outskirts, to preside at a Holy Thursday Mass for dozens of inmates, guards, chaplains and officials gathered in an outdoor area of the female section.
The female section of the prison, one of Italy's largest, holds about 370 inmates who are jailed for various offences.
Francis is the first pope to hold the foot-washing ceremony outside churches, usually in prisons, homes for the elderly or hospices, continuing a practice he began when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.
