Pope Proclaims 2025 Jubilee Year, Urging Christians to Trust in Jesus
Francis appeals to the faithful to be beacons of hope to "our brothers and sisters who experience hardship of any kind.”
By Gary Gately
Pope Francis called on Christians to place their trust and hope in Jesus as he officially declared 2025 a Jubilee Year, a rich Catholic tradition that comes every 25 years and is expected to draw more than 30 million of the faithful to Rome.
The Jubilee Year kicks off on Christmas Eve with Francis walking through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica — an ornate bronze “door of mercy” opened only for Jubilees. The faithful believe anyone who passes through it will experience the love of God, who consoles, pardons and instills hope.
“Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross,” Francis said Thursday in the papal Bull of Indiction, titled “Spes non confundit” (“Hope does not disappoint”), the official decree establishing the Jubilee Year.
Jubilee Years date to Pope Boniface VII proclaiming the first in 1300, and they’re now held every quarter-century, though Francis called a smaller-scale interim Jubilee devoted to mercy in 2015.
Pilgrims who pass through the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s or three other Roman basilicas during Jubilee 2025 receive a plenary indulgence, or remission of punishment for sins. Basilicas in the Holy Land and Assisi, Italy, have also been designated Jubilee pilgrimage sites, as has the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
But those who can’t it to Pilgrimage sites can still obtain the indulgences through works of charity or mercy such as visiting the sick, prisoners, the lonely, the elderly or the disabled; observing the penitential nature of Fridays, including by abstaining from “futile distractions” such as social media; donating “a proportionate sum” of money to the poor; or supporting religious or social works, especially those in defense of life.
Indulgences began in 1095 under Pope Urban II, and the Church’s practice of selling them helped inspire Martin Luther to launch the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. The Church stopped selling indulgences in 1562.
In his decree, delivered during a ceremony in the atrium at St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis repeated his plea for peace and for compassion for the poor, the homeless, the lonely, prisoners and migrants and called on us to protect the environment.
But the 87-year-old Jesuit pontiff said believers must not give in to despair, adding that we are called to be “tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardship of any kind.”
“In addition to finding hope in God’s grace, we are also called to discover hope in the signs of the times that the Lord gives us,” the pontiff added. “We need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence.”
Francis reminded us that God’s judgment of us “will surely be based on love, and in particular on all that we have done or failed to do with regard to those in need, in whose midst Christ, the judge himself, is present.”
“We should indeed prepare ourselves consciously and soberly for the moment when our lives will be judged, but we must always do this from the standpoint of hope, the theological virtue that sustains our lives and shields them from groundless fear,” Francis said
In a world ravaged by war and other violence in the Holy Land, Ukraine, Myanmar and elsewhere, Francis repeated his pleas for peace.
“The first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war,” he said. “Heedless of the horrors of the past, humanity is confronting yet another ordeal, as many peoples are prey to brutality and violence. What does the future hold for those peoples, who have already endured so much?
“How is it possible that their desperate plea for help is not motivating world leaders to resolve the numerous regional conflicts in view of their possible consequences at the global level? Is it too much to dream that arms can fall silent and cease to rain down destruction and death?”
He appealed for “tireless diplomacy” to bring “lasting peace,” adding: “May the Jubilee remind us that those who are peacemakers will be called ’children of God,’ The need for peace challenges us all and demands that concrete steps be taken.”
Francis also lamented that “the poor continue to be the majority of the planet’s population, billions of people,” many of whom lack adequate food and water.
“For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope. God’s word helps us find reasons for that hope.” — Pope Francis
To give them hope and help lift them out of poverty, Francis said: “The rich must be generous and not avert their eyes from the faces of their brothers and sisters in need…. More than a question of generosity, this is a matter of justice. I ask with all my heart that hope be granted to the billions of the poor, who often lack the essentials of life.”
He renewed his appeal that money spent on weapons should be redirected to establish a global fund to end hunger in the most impoverished countries.
Francis urged leaders to cancel the debts of poor countries and offer amnesty or pardon for prisoners.
He has often visited prisoners and announced Thursday that a “holy door” would be opened at a Rome prison “as a sign inviting prisoners to look to the future with hope and a renewed sense of confidence.”
He exhorted leaders to offer pardons or amnesty, demand “dignified conditions” for prisoners, abolish the death penalty and undertake initiatives to help ex-offenders reintegrate into the community.
Turning his attention to young people, Francis said: “It is sad to see young people who are without hope, who face an uncertain and unpromising future, who lack employment or job security, or realistic prospects after finishing school….
“Without the hope that their dreams can come true, they will inevitably grow discouraged and listless. Escaping into drugs, risk-taking and the pursuit of momentary pleasure does greater harm to them in particular, since it closes them to life’s beauty and richness and can lead to depression and even self-destructive actions.”
The Jubilee, Francis said, “should inspire the Church to make greater efforts to reach out to them. With renewed passion, let us demonstrate care and concern for adolescents, students and young couples, the rising generation. Let us draw close to the young, for they are the joy and hope of the Church and of the world.”
The Argentina-born pope also touched on the environment.
“A true ecological debt exists, particularly between the global North and South, connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time," he said, reminding us that we are caretakers of the Earth, God’s creation.
Amid rampant anti-migrant rhetoric, Francis said: “Signs of hope should also be present for migrants who leave their homelands behind in search of a better life for themselves and for their families. Their expectations must not be frustrated by prejudice and rejection.”
Every nation must “always be prepared to defend the rights of those who are most vulnerable, opening wide its doors to welcome them, lest anyone ever be robbed of the hope of a better future,” Francis said.
He quoted Matthew 25: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me…. Just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”
Francis also expressed alarm at sharply declining birth rates, reflecting a “loss of the desire to transmit life.”
“Openness to life and responsible parenthood is the design that the Creator has implanted in the hearts and bodies of men and women, a mission that the Lord has entrusted to spouses and to their love,” he said. “For the desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters as a sign of the fruitfulness of their love ensures a future for every society. This is a matter of hope: It is born of hope and it generates hope.”
He cited among causes of declining birth rates “today’s frenetic pace, fears about the future, the lack of job security and adequate social policies and social models whose agenda is dictated by the quest for profit.”
Christians should work toward a “future filled with the laughter of babies and children,” Francis said.
But he stressed again and again that all the challenges we face individually and globally must be viewed in the context of light, faith, hope and love, not darkness, doubt, despair and hate.
“Everyone knows what it is to hope,” Francis said. “In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring….
“Often we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness. For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope. God’s word helps us find reasons for that hope.”