Pope Francis announces 2025 Jubilee Year theme: ‘Holy Year of Hope’
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Pope Francis announces 2025 Jubilee Year theme: ‘Holy Year of Hope’
Pope Francis announced in a letter Friday 11th Feb, 2022, that hope will be the central theme for the upcoming 2025 Jubilee Year, voicing his desire for the year to foster a greater sense of global brotherhood and solidarity with the poor, as well as care for the environment.
Dated Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the letter was addressed to Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, which is tasked with organizing the Jubilee.
The first-ever “Holy Year” was instituted by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300 and was initially celebrated every 100 years. Then, following biblical tradition, it was marked every 50 years, and it was finally decided by Pope Paul II in 1490 to observe the jubilee year every 25 years, so that each person could experience one in his or her lifetime.
Jubilees, designed to be a time of conversion and increased emphasis on God’s mercy and forgiveness of sins, are marked by the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica. The Holy Doors, present in each of the four papal basilicas in Rome, are destination points for pilgrims who travel to Rome during the Jubilee and who pass through seeking special graces and outpourings of God’s mercy.
The last Ordinary Jubilee was the Great Jubilee of 2000, celebrated by Pope John Paul II.
A new custom of calling “extraordinary” jubilees, meaning outside of the 25-year rotation, and which can last a few days to a few months, began in the 16th century. There have only been a handful of extraordinary jubilees since, the latest being the 2015-2016 Jubilee of Mercy called by Pope Francis.
The Holy Year of 2025 will be the 27th ordinary jubilee year of the Catholic Church. The 2025 Jubilee Year begins on December 24 (Christmas Eve) and concludes on January 6, 2026.
“As the first twenty-five years of the new century draw to a close, we are called to enter into a season of preparation that can enable the Christian people to experience the Holy Year in all its pastoral richness,” Pope Francis said.
This will only happen, he said, “if we are capable of recovering a sense of universal fraternity and refuse to turn a blind eye to the tragedy of rampant poverty that prevents millions of men, women, young people and children from living in a manner worthy of our human dignity,” especially migrants and refugees forced to flee their homes.
“May the voices of the poor be heard throughout this time of preparation for the Jubilee, which is meant to restore access to the fruits of the earth to everyone,” the pope said.
“All of us are pilgrims on this earth,” he said, and urged faithful to make a special effort to care for creation during the Jubilee, saying, “may we never fail, in the course of our sojourn, to contemplate the beauty of creation and care for our common home.”
In the lead-up, the pope asked that the year 2024 be devoted to prayer, “above all else, to renew our desire to be in the presence of the Lord, to listen to him and to adore him.”
The Australian Catholic Youth Festival, will now conclude the Church’s celebration of the international Jubilee Year in December 2025. The Archdiocese of Melbourne was selected as the host city for the next Festival.