ROME – With Pope Francis' 2025 Jubilee of Hope fast approaching, the Vatican official in charge of planning the event stressed the importance of forgiveness and solidarity amid a climate of global anger and resentment.
“Without hope, we cannot understand the essence of life. Hope belongs to the essence of the Christian life, because, together with faith and charity, it expresses the style of the believer,” said Italy's Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who participated in a panel discussion with Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri at the annual festival in Rimini, Italy.
Fisichella, who is prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which is organizing the Holy Year of Hope planned for 2025, is in charge of preparing the jubilee.
Fisichella focused on two aspects of the Jubilee Year: hope and forgiveness, two central themes throughout Pope Francis' Bull, “Hope Will Not Disappoint.”
The papal bull, released in May, set the tone for the jubilee and included calls by Francis for amnesty for prisoners and debt forgiveness for developing countries that he said would help give the world more hope.
The Pope also made several appeals to show hope to those who need it most, and hinted that ecumenism will be a major theme of the upcoming Jubilee Year.
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Fisichella said there are two distinct aspects that make the anniversary of 2025 special, one of which is hope itself.
The second aspect is “the ability to give, to offer, to participate and to practice concrete signs of hope”, and to do this “requires a personal journey of the whole Church, of the whole humanity, and this is why we are pilgrims”, he said.
The trip is especially necessary “at a time like this, when violence is so prevalent on a daily basis,” he said.
He also spoke about Jubilee indulgences, referencing the church's checkered history with them and saying that at one point they even helped Martin Luther's Protestant Revolution by selling them.
“To profit from an indulgence is to revoke it,” he said. “I have never used this verb, and I hope I never will. There is nothing to profit from, since there is nothing to buy.”
Fisichella said indulgences are a gift from God and “the Jubilee is an announcement of the great forgiveness that has been given to us.”
Indulgences in the Catholic Church, which completely absolve sins of their worldly consequences after they have been forgiven, are unique to the Jubilee Year. In the run-up to the 2025 Jubilee, the Vatican is broadly offering plenary indulgences to all who make pilgrimages as part of the Jubilee Year.
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Fisichella noted that in his Jubilee Bull, the Pope repeatedly stressed that forgiveness cannot change the past but can help build a better future, which he said is essential for moving forward.
“In a climate of resentment, violence and revenge, the Jubilee comes to remind us of God's great gifts,” he said.
The Pope said forgiveness through New Year's indulgences is “a grace, not a conquest. There is no point in profiting from it.”
“It is through the journey – the pilgrimage, the passage through the Holy Door, the profession of faith and acts of charity – that you experience God's forgiveness. It is the message that God comes to see you,” he said.
Using the example of the recently concluded Paris Olympics, Fisichella said that while the effort and hard work that went into organising a commemorative event is invisible and will soon be forgotten, the most important achievements will be remembered.
“Let me put it this way: hard work pays off… what's important is that you get experience by winning 40 medals,” he said.
Fisichella expressed hope that during the Jubilee Year the Church will be “more convinced than ever of the beauty and responsibility of sharing the Gospel with everyone,” “because the Jubilee is a special expression of evangelization.”
Speaking to the panel via video connection, Gualtieri described the 2025 Jubilee as a “wrist-shaking challenge” but also a spiritual opportunity and a chance to make Rome more “beautiful, efficient and inclusive.”
He said the Jubilee is an opportunity to put into practice “the values outlined by the Pope: solidarity, inclusion, care of creation and the obligation to welcome everyone wherever possible.”
He said some 35 million pilgrims were expected to visit Rome to celebrate the Holy Year – more than 10,000 per day – and insisted that the city was ready for the start of the Holy Year in December, despite many ongoing construction projects that were yet to be completed.
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