Pope Francis inaugurated his Holy Year at Rome’s primary prison on Thursday, bringing a message of hope to inmates and involving them within the Catholic Church’s once-every-quarter century celebration that is anticipated to bring some 32 million pilgrims to Rome.
Francis stood up from his wheelchair, knocked on the door to the chapel at Rebibbia prison and walked across the brink, re-enacting the gesture he performed at St. Peter’s Basilica two nights earlier on Christmas Eve.
The opening of the Holy Door on the Basilica officially kicked of the Jubilee yr, a church tradition dating to 1300 that these days occurs every 25 years and involves the faithful coming to Rome on pilgrimages.
“The first Holy Door I opened at Christmas in St. Peter’s. I wanted the second be here, in a jail,” Francis told the inmates before he entered. “I wanted each of us here, in and out, to have the opportunity of throwing open the door of our hearts and understanding that hope doesn’t disappoint.”
Francis dedicated the 2025 Jubilee to hope and has made clear that prisoners were a crucial a part of the Holy Year: The final grand event of the Jubilee is a special Mass for inmates at St. Peter’s on Dec. 14, 2025. Francis has long made prison ministry a crucial a part of his priestly vocation and has made several visits to Rebibbia since becoming pope in 2013.
His message, also delivered to inmates during his foreign trips, is all the time one in every of hope, believing that people who find themselves serving prison sentences need something to stay up for greater than most.
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