VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis opened the “Holy Door” of St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve on Tuesday, launching the Jubilee year of Catholic celebrations set to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome.
The 88-year-old pontiff, who has recently been suffering from a cold, was pushed in a wheelchair up to the huge, ornate bronze door and knocked on it before the doors opened.
In a ceremony watched on screens by thousands of faithful outside in St. Peter’s Square, the Argentine pontiff went through the door, followed by a procession, as the bells of the Vatican Basilica rang out.
THROUGH THE ‘HOLY DOOR’ Pope Francis opens the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to mark the start of the Catholic Jubilee Year on Dec. 24, 2024. Pope Francis marks Christmas Eve with a special ceremony launching Jubilee 2025, a year of Catholic celebrations set to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome. Over the next 12 months, pilgrims will pass through the large and imposing bronze door, which is normally closed, by tradition benefiting from a ‘plenary indulgence,’ a type of forgiveness for their sins. PHOTO BY ALBERTO PIZZOLI/POOL/AFP
Over the next 12 months, Catholic pilgrims will pass through the door — which is normally bricked up — by tradition benefiting from a “plenary indulgence,” a type of forgiveness for their sins.
Pope Francis then presided over the Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s, where he turned once again to the victims of war.
“We think of wars, of machine-gunned children, of bombs on schools and hospitals,” he said in his homily.
The pope had drawn an angry response from Israel at the weekend for condemning the “cruelty” of Israel’s strikes in Gaza that killed children.
He was due to deliver his traditional Christmas Day blessing, Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world), at midday on Wednesday.
Some 700 security officers are being deployed around the Vatican and Rome for the Jubilee celebrations, with measures further tightened following Friday’s car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Germany.
Much of Rome has also been given a facelift in preparation, with monuments such as the Trevi Fountain and the Ponte Sant’Angelo cleaned up and roads redesigned to improve the flow of traffic.
Many residents have questioned how the Eternal City — where key sites are already overcrowded and public transport is unreliable — will cope with millions more visitors next year.
Key Jubilee projects were only finished in the last few days after months of work that turned much of the city into a building site.
Inaugurating a new road tunnel at Piazza Pia next to the Vatican on Monday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said it had taken a “little civil miracle” to get the project finished in time.
Over the course of the next few days, Holy Doors will be opened in Rome’s three major basilicas and in Catholic churches around the world.
On Thursday, Pope Francis will open a Holy Door at Rebibbia prison in Rome and preside over a Mass in a show of support for the inmates.
Organized by the Church every 25 years, the Jubilee is intended as a period of reflection and penance and is marked by a long list of cultural and religious events, from Masses to exhibitions, conferences and concerts.
The Jubilee, whose motto this year is “Pilgrims of Hope,” is primarily aimed at the world’s almost 1.4 billion Catholics but also aims to reach a wider audience.
Traditions have evolved since the first such event back in 1300, launched by Pope Boniface 8th.
This year, the Vatican has provided pilgrims with online registration and multilingual phone apps to navigate events.
Jubilee 2025 also has a mascot named Luce (meaning Light in Latin), inspired by Japanese anime cartoons.
The event will see groups from around the world come to Rome throughout 2025, from sports and business figures to migrants, artists and young people.
Among the groups registered on the official site is the Italian LGBTQ group La Tenda di Gionata, reflecting the pope’s call for the Church to be open to all.
In his homily, the pope said the Jubilee was a time for “spiritual renewal” and hope, including for “our mother Earth, disfigured by profiteering” and “for the poorer countries burdened beneath unfair debts.”
In his own Christmas Eve homily on Tuesday, Manila Archbishop Jose Cardinal Advincula called on the faithful not to lose hope “because the star of Bethlehem will light our path and guide us in our journeys.”
Advincula said the present gloomy situation the people are in is no different at a time when Christ was born in a manger and at a time when the world was ruled by kings and emperors with vast power, and governance was also characterized by oppression and corruption.
“The circumstances of the first Christmas were very much like ours today. Imagine an emperor who wants to know how many subjects he has. A king who took power through corruption, religious elders who missed the sign that saw from afar, lowly shepherds who were out in the field away from their loved ones to work even at night. A family who could not find a room to deliver their baby,” said the prelate.
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