ROME – Pope Francis on Tuesday formally inaugurated the 2025 Holy Year, reviving an ancient church tradition encouraging the faithful to make pilgrimages to Rome, amid new security fears following a Christmas market attack in Germany. At the start of Christmas Eve Mass, Francis pushed open the Holy Door on St Peter’s Basilica, which will stay open throughout the year to allow the estimated 32 million pilgrims projected to visit Rome to pass through.

The first Holy Year was called in 1300, and in recent times they are generally celebrated every 25 to 50 years. Pilgrims who participate can obtain “indulgences” – the centuries-old feature of the Catholic Church related to the forgiveness of sins that roughly amounts to a “get out of Purgatory free” card.

The last regular Jubilee was in 2000, when St John Paul II ushered in the church’s third millennium. Francis declared a special Jubilee in 2015-2016 dedicated to mercy and the next one planned is in 2033, to commemorate the anniversary of the crucifixion of Christ.

According to church teaching, Catholics who confess their sins are forgiven and therefore released from the eternal or spiritual punishment of damnation. An indulgence is designed to remove the “temporal” punishment of sin that may remain – the consequence of the wrongdoing that might disrupt the sinner’s relationships with others. Martin Luther’s opposition to the church’s practice of selling indulgences inspired him to launch the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. He was excommunicated, and the practice of buying and selling indulgences has been illegal since the 1562 Council of Trent. But the granting of them has continued and is an important element in Holy Year pilgrimages. (Jamaica-Gleaner)

Photo: Pope Francis opens the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. (AP)