Commentary: Catholic Jubilee 2025 – 2025 proclaimed a Holy Year by Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State

By Christopher Young,
Contributing Writer,

Jubilees, in the Catholic faith, are designated years of special significance – a Holy Year. The first Jubilee Year was 1300, designated so by Pope Boniface VIII – a time in which God’s holiness transforms us. The frequency of Holy Years has changed over time. Sometimes it was one- hundred-year increments, other times it was every fifty years, then every twenty-five years – and those are called ordinary Holy Years.
Some Popes have also proclaimed extraordinary Holy Years, like Pope Francis did in 2015 with the Year of Mercy.
Originally the Holy Year consisted of a pilgrimage to the Roman Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, later other signs were added, such as the Holy Door. By participating in the Holy Year, one is granted a plenary indulgence, per the Vatican’s website for Jubilee 2025, https://www.iubilaeum2025.va
Earlier this year, Pope Francis met with the Sisters of The Holy Family of Nazareth, to celebrate the 150th year of their foundation, and spoke about the upcoming Jubilee, saying, “Jubilees are precious times for taking stock of our lives, both as individuals and as communities. All jubilees are opportunities for reflection, recollection, and listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us today.”
Characteristics or signs in a Holy Year include pilgrimage, the Holy Door, reconciliation, prayer, liturgy, profession of faith and indulgences. The church emphasizes that while we change our physical place during pilgrimage, we also open ourselves to transforming our entire being to conform to God’s holiness. The Holy Door becomes the passageway that ushers the pilgrim into the interior of the church, drawing significance from the gospel of John 10…”I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”
In practical terms, reconciliation involves receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation, taking advantage of this time to rediscover the value of confession, and experiencing God’s personal words of forgiveness. There are some Jubilee churches that stay open continuously to make available the sacrament of Reconciliation, per https://www.iubilaeum2025.va. During the Holy Year, opportunities for prayer on the journey show that the pilgrim holds the path to God “in his heart” (Psalm 83:6). The liturgy – public prayer of the church contains Mass itself, the Eucharistic celebration where the body and blood of Christ are received.
The profession of faith is a sign of identity of the baptized person that they go on to share with the entire Christian community for the rest of his or her life. The Jubilee indulgence – the experience of God’s mercy – allows us to free our hearts from the weight of sin because the reparation due for our sins is given freely and abundantly.
In February 2022, the Vatican released statistics showing that in 2020 the number of Catholics in the world increased by 16 million to 1.36 billion. That means that 17.7% of the world’s population is Catholic. Of this total, 48% are in the Americas, with 28% living in South America. Following recent trends, the Catholic Church grew most rapidly in Asia (+1.8%) and Africa (+2.1%) with very slight growth in Europe (0.3%), per the Institute for Advanced Catholic Sties at the University of Southern California.
In April 2024, The Pew Research Center estimated that 20% of the adult population of the United States is Catholic. This number has remained steady for many years yet does represent a decrease from 24% in 2007. The Catholic population in the US is 57% White, 33% Hispanic, 4% Asian and 2% Black, while 3% are of another race, per the report. Twenty-nine percent of US Catholics live in the South – the highest percent among the four regions. About the adult religious population in Mississippi, Pew says that 83% are Christian, with 41% being evangelical protestant, 24% historically black protestant, and 12% mainline protestant, and 4% catholic.
The Pope tweets – how bout that? On December 6, 2024, he posted on X (formerly Twitter), “The Jubilee 2025 will be filled with our hope in God, which does not fade. May it help us renew our trust in the Church, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of every person and respect for creation.”
The Mississippi Link newspaper reached out to Bishop Joseph Kopaz, leader of the Diocese of Jackson since 2014. He shared, “We are working in coordination with the timeframe established by The Vatican, with emphasis on the rolling opening of doors throughout the diocese. We’ll start our process at the Feast of the Epiphany – January 6th – and proceed through the Holy Year. The Feast of the Epiphany is the celebration of the coming Magi. We look forward to the Jubilee and its theme of hope and the symbology of new life and new hope.”
Announcement: On Saturday, December 21, 2024, at 11 a.m. at St. Peter’s Cathedral, Jackson, MS, Bishop Kopacz will bless a life-sized bronze statue of Sr. Thea Bowman.
Sr. Thea, along with five other African Americans are on their way to Sainthood. If granted Sainthood, she will be the first African-American Saint in the history of the Catholic Church.

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