[3rd Update] After Pope Francis announced the celebration of the ordinary Jubilee Year 2025, at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica on Ascension Thursday (the 40th day of Easter), on May 9, 2024, preparations are now underway for its opening on Christmas Eve this year 2024. According to the Bull of Indiction, Spes non confundit (Hope does not disappoint), the theme of the jubilee is “Pilgrims of Hope”. The Pope envisions the Jubilee Year as a year of hope for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of Covid-19 pandemic, and the climate crisis.
The Vatican subsequently announced that the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve this year 2024 is what is going to usher in the beginning of the Jubilee Year. On 29 December 2024, the Pope will open the Holy Door of the Archbasilica of St John Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome. On the same day, every Cathedral and co-Cathedral throughout the world will have Mass celebrated by the local Bishop to mark the opening of the Jubilee. On the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, 1 January 2025, Pope Francis will open the Holy Door for the Basilica of St Mary Major, with the Holy Door for the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls being opened on Sunday, 5 January 2025, the Vigil of Epiphany.
The Jubilee will end in the particular Churches throughout the world on 28 December 2025, with the Holy Doors of St John Lateran, St Mary Major, and St Paul’s Outside the Walls being closed on that same date. Finally, the Jubilee Year will draw to a close in Rome on the Solemnity of Epiphany, 6 January 2026.
In connection with the opening of the Holy Doors of the Major Basilicas, the question has been asked if Holy Doors in Cathedral Churches, National and International Shrines, as well as in other particularly significant places of worship might also be opened. In answer to this query, the Dicastery for Evangelization cited the Bull of Convocation of the Jubilee Year, Spes non confundit, in which Pope Francis indicated that he simply meant to have exclusively the Holy Doors of the the four Major Basilicas and the Holy Door of a prison—yet to be determined—opened for the occasion.
As in previous jubilee celebrations, however, the faithful will have numerous opportunities to obtain indulgences during the 2025 Year of Jubilee. Pilgrimages, works of mercy, acts of penance, etc., are ways Catholics can obtain an indulgence during the jubilee year. A plenary indulgence, it will be recalled, is the remission of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. The faithful can gain these indulgences under certain prescribed conditions, namely, that the faithful must: a) have the explicit intention to receive them and thus have the disposition to completely detach from sin; b) have sacramentally confessed their sins before or after receiving the indulgence; c) receive the Holy Eucharist; and d) pray for the intentions of the Holy Father. Plenary indulgences obtained during the Jubilee Year can also be applied to souls in purgatory with the possibility of obtaining two plenary indulgences for the deceased in one day.
Since it is not possible for eveyone to travel to Rome for a pilgrimage to the Major Basilicas, bishops all over the world are expected to designate their cathedrals or diocesan shrines as pilgrim churches, where the faithful might be offered the opportunities for prayer, for sacramental confessions and Eucharistic celebrations, and where indulgences might be obtained. In this connection, Bishop Jose Rojas, Bishop of Libmanan, named six churches in the Diocese of Libmanan as pilgrim churches, as follows: 1) St. James the Greater Cathedral, Libmanan (Camarines Sur); 2) Our Lady of the Pillar Shrine and Parish Church, San Isidro, Libmanan (Camarines Sur); 3) St. Joseph the Worker Parish Church, Milaor (Camarines Sur); 4) Our Lady of Penafrancia Parish Church, Sinuknipan, Del Gallego (Camarines Sur); 5) St. John the Baptist Parish Church, Sipocot (Camarines Sur); and 6) Most Holy Trinity Parish Church, Ragay (Camarines Sur). The Apostolic Penitentiary, however, is yet to grant permission to these churches, along with other churches nominated by the bishops elsewhere in the country, to grant the grace of plenary indulgence during the jubilee year.
Update: On October 16, 2024, during the administrative and pastoral planning, participants suggested that each of the vicariates should have a jubilee church. Approving the suggestion, the bishop designated St. Peter Baptist Church in Lupi and St. Michael the Archangel Church in Pamplona as jubilee churches.
