This Easter Sunday to become Francis' big intro to his papacy

When Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 young inmates at a juvenile detention facility near Rome, he broke with a tradition of holding the ceremony in the ornate setting of St. John Lateran's Basilica.
Some Catholics say his act on Holy Thursday is a sign of what his message will be on Easter Sunday, his first as pope.
Sunday, the audience will be quite different from the few people who witnessed Francis' feet washing, which recalls how Jesus cleansed the feet of his 12 apostles at the Last Supper.

Until recently the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis will celebrate Easter Mass in front of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. Many of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics will pay close attention to what he has to tell them.

Francis has made several public gestures since becoming pope to indicate how he will define the mission. He paid his hotel bill in Rome by himself and took a small apartment in the Vatican. In one of his first public appearances, he abandoned the protection of the bullet-proof popemobile to give blessings and greet well-wishers.

He made a point of demonstrating to his flock, his priests and cardinals that they must take the teachings of Christ to the world, in a humble and spiritual way. His remarks at his first general audience Wednesday may have been an insight into his message to come Sunday.

"Holy Week challenges us to step outside ourselves so as to attend to the needs of others: those who long for a sympathetic ear, those in need of comfort or help," Francis told thousands of people in St. Peter's Square.

Italian Vatican watcher and author Paolo Rodari said Sunday's Easter Mass will symbolically serve as the end of the first phase and the start of the second.

After two weeks of rain and gray skies, the weather Sunday is forecast to be bright and sunny.
The political temperature inside the church varies, however. Virtually everything Francis has done since being elected pope, every gesture, every decision, has rankled traditionalists in one way or another.