The Holy Father has decided that 2025 will be a year of Jubilee, something which happens every 25 years. In the Catholic Church, the concept of Jubilee or ‘Holy Year’ was used to declare special years for forgiveness and reconciliation. The first Jubilee was declared by Pope Boniface VIII on 22nd February 1300 (Feast of the Chair of St. Peter), to mark the beginning of that century. He later recommended it occurring every 100 years.

Various other Popes changed the length of the interval between the observances. But Pope Saint Paul II set the present 25-year interval in the 1500s. So Holy Years are ‘ordinary’ when they occur at regular intervals (25 years in these modern times) and ‘extraordinary’ when they are proclaimed for a very special reason. More recently a Great Jubilee was declared in 2000 by Pope Saint John Paul II to celebrate the new millennium. That Jubilee year brought the total number of universal Jubilee years to 28 that so far had been celebrated by the Church.

The theme for 2025 is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, and it will be a year of hope for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, and a climate crisis. The Jubilee of Hope will begin in December 2024 with Pope Francis opening the ‘holy door’ in St. Peter’s Basilica, offering the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics the possibility of obtaining a plenary indulgence and a year of special graces. The Jubilee of Hope will end on the feast of the Epiphany in 2026.