Critics said it was just a publicity stunt. But that was not how I felt when I watched the video of Pope Francis washing and kissing the feet of prisoners who included women and Muslims. I felt a lump in my throat as tears welled up in my eyes.
I am a Buddhist and know very little about Christian rituals. But what Pope Francis did on Good Friday last week was an expression of profound humility and compassion that talks to anybody of any faith. This is what all prophets taught _ a life of humility and indiscriminate compassion. This is how all prophets lived _ a life of service to the downtrodden. This is what the followers of all faiths expect of their monastics. Yet most priests and monks in organised religions have allowed themselves to be bound by the trappings of wealth and power while becoming blind to what should have been their goal _ to ease others' suffering and to liberate oneself from all forms of prejudice and illusions.
The shock resignation of Pope Benedict, which required the election of a new pontiff, put the spotlight on many problems plaguing the Catholic Church. Child abuse by priests and the culture of impunity. Financial problems at the Vatican Bank. Corruption in the Vatican exposed by Vatileaks. The declining number of churchgoers who consider the church irrelevant given its opposition to gays, contraception and female ordination.
Despite the public disillusionment, Pope Francis has demonstrated how easy it is to win back the faithful. Not through the drumming of religious doctrines. Nor through the pomp and pageantry that comes with high office. But through acts of indiscriminate compassion and a return to simplicity and humility.
When the world is ridden with religious misunderstandings, Pope Francis called for inter-faith dialogue. In the face of hatred and violence, his plea is very simple: overcome evil with good.
It is the message that people from all faiths need to hear. Yet many have turned their backs on the teachings because they think it more important to prove their superiority over other faiths.
The fervour becomes lethal when faiths are fanned by racism.
Forget Christian-Muslims conflicts, for us Buddhists are no better when it comes to ethno-religious nationalism. In Sri Lanka, the Buddhists there are especially devout compared to Thais, yet it is where the civil war between the Buddhist Sinhalese and the Hindu Tamils raged for 26 years, killing close to 100,000 people. Buddhist monks have been deeply involved in Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict throughout. After defeating the Tamils, a group of hard-line monks last week led hundreds of people to storm a Muslim shop to protest against Muslim lifestyles and, as they saw it, to protect Buddhism.
The same week, we saw Muslim Rohingya communities razed and people killed by hard-line Buddhist groups in Myanmar's Rakhine state. As in Sri Lanka, the campaigns of hatred against ethnic minorities are led by ultra-nationalist and racist monks.
In Thailand, ethno-religious nationalism from both Thai Buddhists and Malay Muslims accounts for the violence in the deep South that has claimed over 5,000 lives in nine years. Although we still don't see Thai monks coming out to lead anti-Muslim campaigns openly, they are generally not shy about revealing their deep distrust and fear of Muslims. Their silence towards state oppression against the Malay Muslims is tantamount to their tacit approval of state injustice.
If we are honest with ourselves, the Thai Buddhist clergy is plagued with the same problems as the Catholic Church. Even worse, perhaps. To start with, there is virtually no talk about sexual abuse in the clergy although the problem is grave.
There are no efforts to curb the commercialisation of Buddhism and to improve monks' training. Female ordination under Thai Theravada Buddhism remains illegal. The elders are living in a cocoon of material wealth and comfort while the ecclesiastical system remains deeply feudal and autocratic. And while the Catholic Church is trying to respond to criticism by initiating changes, the Thai Buddhist clergy has been trying to sponsor a law to punish the media for tarnishing its image.
Similar to the Catholic Church, young people here are abandoning temples and monks.
Pope Francis has shown that returning to humility and indiscriminate compassion is a winning move to restore faith. It is that simple. Here, however, there are still no signs that the clergy will leave wealth and comfort to follow the Buddha's path of simplicity and selflessness.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is Editorial Pages Editor, Bangkok Post.