The Church's Jubilee.

If you are planning to visit Rome at the moment, please don’t. The city is an open air construction site and every major monument is covered in scaffoldings. This is because our Eternal City is getting ready for our 2025 Jubilee. It goes against my interests as a Roman citizen, because the crowds will be huge, but I still suggest you to come once the celebrations kick off. What is a jubilee though?

Jubilees remind us of the importance of Christ in our lives, time itself is based on the birth of Christ, for example, when the world celebrated the year 2,000, it was because it had been that long since our Lord took flesh and came into the world. The Church of Rome defines it as such: “In the Roman Catholic tradition, a Holy Year, or Jubilee is a great religious event. It is a year of forgiveness of sins and also the punishment due to sin, it is a year of reconciliation between adversaries, of conversion and receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and consequently of solidarity, hope, justice, commitment to serve God with joy and in peace with our brothers and sisters. A Jubilee year is above all the year of Christ, who brings life and grace to humanity”. It is called a Holy Year because it strengthens the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Roman Catholic Church also says: “The Jubilee is called Holy Year, not only because its begins, is marked, and ends with solemn holy acts, but also because its purpose is to encourage holiness of life. It was actually convoked to strengthen faith, encourage works of charity and brotherly communion within the Church and in society and to call Christians to be more sincere and coherent in their faith in Christ, the only Savior".

The Christian Jubilee goes back to biblical times, the Law of Moses reserved a special year for the Jewish people: "You shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim the liberty throughout the land, to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family. This fiftieth year is to be a jubilee year for you: you will not sow, you will not harvest the un-gathered corn, you will not gather the untrimmed vine. The jubilee is to be a holy thing to you, you will eat what comes from the fields."(The Book of Leviticus 25:10-14) The trumpet with which this particular year was announced was a goat's horn called Yobel in Hebrew, and the origin of the word jubilee. The celebration of this year also included the restitution of land to the original owners, the remission of debts, the liberation of slaves and the land was left fallow. In the New Testament, Jesus presents himself as the One who brings the old Jubilee to completion, because he has come to "preach the year of the Lord's favour" (Isaiah 61:1-2).

At the end of the Middle Ages, Rome had become a central destination for pilgrims coming from all over Europe and beyond. From the 12th century onwards there comes a change however, pilgrims start flooding into Rome for a pilgrimage based on repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The Medieval mind pushed a Christian people, who had a strong eschatological view of the Mass, to flock into Rome in order to be granted forgiveness not only by the Vicar of Christ himself but also through the many relics in Rome, include the Veronica veil itself, peasants and monarchs alike would come to Rome to be granted the indulgence and the forgiveness of sins. St. Peter’s Basilica becomes the main pilgrimage site in Christendom. This laid the foundations for the creation of the first Jubilee.

The first Jubilee was proclaimed in the year 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII, a member of the still thriving Caetani family with the Antiquorum Habet Fida Relatio bull. Various chronicler of the time, such as Guglielmo Ventura in his Memoriale, wrote accounts of this great event. This came to be, as the bull tells us, there was a time of great suffering, caused by war and disease, and there came a desire to return to a holier life. It was Christmas Eve and many pilgrims marched on foot towards Rome to pray at the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul and to receive the pope’s blessing for grace, a plenary indulgence. The pope having heard of the initiative showed great admiration for the initiative and declared the same a “year of forgiveness of all sins”. It wasn’t just humble women and men who flocked Rome but also the greatest minds (and hands of the time); among them were Cimabue, Giotto, the Royal Family of France, Dante, who will recall the holy event in the Divine Comedy’s Paradiso. The liturgy and music of the celebrations must have been outstanding and transcendental in a dark world lit by candles. He then declared the same celebratory event would be held again in the future, every hundred years. In the second part of the bull, there is a series of rules to follow in order to be granted grace, such as staying in the city for 15 days visiting the churches of the apostles and martyrs, the masses and blessings to attend, etc. - obviously the rules for citizens of Rome were somewhat stricter. The bull is still in the Vatican archives.

Pope Boniface VIII initially agreed the Jubilee should occur every 100 years. With the Avignon papacy, many requested a second Jubilee to occur earlier, then came Clement VI in the year 1350 and it also came the realization that very few churchmen could remember the previous Jubilee, except for a very old priest. He added the obligation of paying a visit to the Lateran, Rome’s cathedral, and reduced the waiting time to 50 years, matching with the Jewish practice and making it more available to a generation whose lives were usually short due to bad living conditions or illness, most commonly the plague. A third jubilee is called out by Urban VI and Boniface IX, the Holy Door is opened on Christmas Eve 1390 and St. Mary Major is added; the latter also agreed to a Jubilee occurring with a symbolical 33 year cadence. There is a Jubilee in the year 1400 under Boniface IX and finally the first extraordinary Jubilee under Martin V to celebrate the return of the papacy to Rome. At this point, it is decided the Jubilee should occur every 25 years which is a long enough time to make it memorable but short enough that most people can experience at least one in their own lifetime. 

In 1425, a Jubilee is called out by Pope Martin V as he proclaims the Holy Year; he has a commemorative Jubilee Medal and the opening of a Holy Door at the Lateran. Nicholas V called the 1450 Jubilee, in 1470, Pope Paul II issued a bull making the 25 year wait official. The next grand Jubilee was that of 1475, when Sixtus IV, had Rome covered in amazing works of art, Sistine Chapel and Ponte Sisto included, the greatest masters of Italy all flocked into Rome: Verrocchio, Signorelli, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Perugino, Melozzo da Forlì.

In the year 1500, Pope Alexander VI announced that the doors in all four major basilicas would be opened together with the Holy Door of St. Peter’s. The ninth Jubilee of 1524 was opened by Pope Clement VII at a time of great religious crisis, only. a few years after the disastrous Sack of Rome, as the Romans thought the Protestant Reformation would have teared Christianity apart. The 1550 Jubilee was proclaimed by Paul II and continued by Pope Julius III, a major influx of pilgrims caused the city to be filled beyond capacity, to the point that Saint Philip Neri came to the rescue with his Confraternity of the Holy Trinity. The following Jubilee in 1575, under Pope Gregory XIII, also saw over 300,000 flocking into Rome. The next were called by great Baroque popes; Clement VIII in 1600, Urban VIII in 1625 and by Clement X in 1675. Innocent XII opened the one in 1700 and is remembered for founding many charitable institutions. Jubilees always came to the rescue at difficult times for the Church, especially as the very existence of the Papal States came into jeopardy later in the century. After 1870, the Holy Year was not held due to the occupation by the troops of King Vittorio Emanuele. Pope Leo XIII started the tradition again. The first half of the 20th century was also tumultuous due to global conflict, the 1950 Jubilee under Pius XII brought back a renewed faith in the Christian people. 

The 2,000 Jubilee came at a time of great celebration, the first Jubilee that marked the end of a millenium under the papacy of Saint John Paul II. In 2016, Pope Francis called for an extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. Now, it is time for the 2025 Jubilee of the Church, it will be a time to come to Rome, pray and reflect on our condition as a people of God and ask for forgiveness; it is not just for Roman Catholics but for Christians from all walks of life and everyone is invited to go through the Holy Door of the four papal basilicas, pray and be one with the millenary tradition of the Church built by Christ. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.