Vatican: Holy Year 2025 Proclaimed by Francis

In the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, Francis emphasized hope, in a world full of despair, individualism, injustice, and torn apart by wars. This world now needs to place Jesus Christ at the center of everything, that is, He “Who is on the right hand of God, swallowing down death, that we might be made heirs of life everlasting” (cf. 1 Pet. 3:22).

Christ in His love and goodness descended into the depths of the earth “so that Heaven may open above us, to make us go up to the Father, and to lift us up.” The Bull remains the only written document in which the Pope calls himself episcopus servus servorum Dei, “bishop, servant of the servants of God.”

Only extracts from the Bull were read by the Regent of the Prefecture of the Papal Household, Msgr. Leonardo Sapienza, in order to specify the dates of the Jubilee Year and the modalities of its unfolding Urbi et Orbi, in Rome and in the world. The official calendar provides for 35 different Jubilees in 2025, from young people to prisoners, including the world of sports and entrepreneurs. Thirty-two million pilgrims are expected in the Eternal City.

In the Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, the Pope decrees that the Holy Door of the Basilica of Saint Peter will be opened on December 24, 2024. The following Sunday, December 29, the Supreme Pontiff will open the Holy Door of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, Cathedral of Rome, before opening that of Saint Mary Major on January 1, 2025, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

On January 5, it will be the turn of the Holy Door of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. The three doors will be shut on Sunday, December 28, 2025, and the Jubilee with end with the closing of the Holy Door of the Basilica of Saint Peter on January 6, 2026.

A Call for the Remittance of Debts and Sentences, As Well As the Desire to Transmit Life

The Holy Father takes this opportunity to launch appeals for the remittance of sentences and debts throughout the world, for peace and for the care of the most vulnerable. Pope Francis proposes that governments restore hope to prisoners by putting in place “forms of amnesty or pardon meant to help individuals regain confidence in themselves and in society,” as well as “programmes of reintegration.”

He announces his desire to open a Holy Door himself in a prison. In a context of demographic collapse in the West, he invites humanity to respond to the “loss of the desire to transmit life” and the birth rate crisis. He affirms that man “cannot rest content with getting along one day at a time, [...] seeking fulfilment in material realities alone.”

He warns, “This leads to a narrow individualism and the loss of hope.” The Supreme Pontiff reminds States but also believers that “the desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters [...] ensures a future for every society.”

An Ecumenical Celebration

Pope Francis also emphasizes that unity and dialogue between Christians will be a central theme of the upcoming Holy Year, which will also mark the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in 325. He sees in this anniversary an invitation to progress toward “visible unity,” by agreeing on the date of Easter, which Catholics and Orthodox will celebrate on April 20, 2025.

The Pope wishes to organize an ecumenical celebration in 2025 to evoke the “richness of the testimony” of martyrs of different Christian religions, which he defines as “seeds of unity, expressions of the ecumenism of blood.”—A more than dubious notion, and one which does not have any truly Catholic meaning...

A Pilgrimage for Meaning

The Supreme Pontiff insists on the important of a “pilgrimage on foot” during the Jubilee, symbolizing the “quest for meaning in life.” Inviting Catholics to rediscover “the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life” during these pilgrimages, he wishes that the anticipated routes be paths of rejuvenation and that the sanctuaries can be “oases of spirituality and places of rest on the pilgrimage of faith, where we can drink from the wellsprings of hope.”

Pope Francis also explains the meaning of the indulgence. During the Jubilee, Catholics may obtain, by performing certain acts and under certain conditions, a remission of the punishment for their sins, called indulgence.

This indulgence, he explains, “is a way of discovering the unlimited nature of God’s mercy.” It highlights “the fullness of God’s forgiveness, which knows no bounds.”

In dioceses throughout the world, the Jubilee will begin on December 29, and all bishops are invited to offer a pilgrimage, Mass, and the reading of passages from the Bull of Indiction on that day. Although the Bull does not mention Holy Doors in dioceses around the world, the Pope nevertheless wishes that this Jubilee can be celebrated everywhere.