The Vatican is set to open five sacred portals starting on Christmas Eve for the first time in 25 years.
The opening of the Holy Doors marks the beginning of the 2025 Jubilee which is a year of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewed focus on the spiritual life.
According to church teaching, Catholics who confess their sins during this time are forgiven and therefore released from the eternal or spiritual punishment of damnation.
At the start of Christmas Eve Mass, Pope Francis will push open the Holy Door in 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.
Catholics worldwide can watch the ritual unfold starting at 1pm ET as a web camera has been installed on St Peter’s door.
Pope Francis has invited Catholics to focus on hope as the world suffers from the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis.
The doors are located at the basilicas of St Peter, St John Lateran, St Mary Major and St Paul Outside the Walls, which are all within a 30 minute drive of the Vatican in Italy.
For the first time, the Pope will also being opening on at the Rebibbia prison, Italy’s largest correction facility, but as delivering a message of hope to prisoners.
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St Peter’s is deemed one of the holiest sites of Christianity. Its construction started in the 4th century when Roman Emperor Constantine decides to build a basilica where the apostle had been buried
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The Catholic church began the ritual on December 2, praying at the door in St Peter’s Basilica and removing a metal box (pictured)that held a key, which was followed by ceremonies at the other four doors
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The first Holy Door was opened in 1425, the archbasilica of St. John Lateran. This is the oldest church in Rome being built in 324 AD.
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Some of the churches are said to house remains of saints and are the oldest basilicas in the world.
The Catholic church began the ritual on December 2, praying at the door in St Peter’s Basilica and removing a metal box that held a key, which was followed by ceremonies at the other four doors.
‘I propose that in this Jubilee Year governments undertake initiatives aimed at restoring hope; forms of amnesty or pardon meant to help individuals regain confidence in themselves and in society; and programs of reintegration in the community,’ shared Pope Francis.
The process of opening the four basilica doors involves removing the brick wall that covers each door from the inside of the basilica, followed by the Pope pushing the doors open to signal the beginning of the Holy Year.
When Jubilee finishes on January 6, 2026, the Pope will be the last person to walk through each of the four doors before closing them, which will then be bricked up and sealed.
The prison door is a hypothetical Holy Door. As the Pope will walk through the main door as ‘a symbol of all the prisons dispersed throughout the world.’
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.
Pope Boniface VIII was the first to Christianize the ceremony and later proclaimed it to be held every 100 years, but two years later Jubilee was changed to every 50 years.
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The Basilica of Saint Paul is the second largest basilica after St Peter’s and is believed to be the burial site of St Paul. It has been a pilgrimage destination since 300AD
It was not until 125 years after the first celebration the first Holy Door was opened in the archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the oldest public church in Rome being built in 324AD.
In 1474, Pope Paul II established Jubilee should be held every 25 years, which followed the tradition of opening all four basilica doors.
St Peter’s, located in Rome, is deemed one of the holiest sites of Christianity.
Saint Peter the Apostle, originally named Simeon, or Simōn, was a disciple of Jesus. He died in around 64 AD in Rome and was recognized in the early Christian church as the leader of the disciples.
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The process involves removing the brick wall that covers the door (pictured inside St Peter’s) from the inside of the basilica, followed by the Pope pushing the door open to signal the beginning of the Holy Year
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The basilica of St Mary Major was tied to the Council of Ephesus of 431 AD, which proclaimed Mary Theotokos, which is Greek for ‘Mother of God’
The basilica construction started in the 4th century when Roman Emperor Constantine decides to build a basilica where the apostle had been buried.
Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.
The basilica of St Mary Major was tied to the Council of Ephesus of 431 AD, which proclaimed Mary Theotokos, which is Greek for ‘Mother of God.’
It is the largest of the 26 churches in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Constantine also ordered the construction of the basilica of St Paul, completing construction in 324, which is believed to house the remains of the Biblical figure.
This year is the first to a Holy Door in the Roman prison of Rebibbia, which will be seen as a ‘symbol of all prisons in the world,’ said Archbishop Rino Fisichella.
