Month: January 2025

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Marking the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and the start of the new year, Pope Francis renewed his appeal for a “firm commitment” to respect all human life worldwide.

“May we learn to care for every child born of a woman, above all by protecting, like Mary, the precious gift of life: life in the womb, the lives of children, the lives of the suffering, the poor, the elderly, the lonely and the dying,” he said in his homily during Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 1.

“All of us are invited to take up the summons that flows from the maternal heart of Mary: we are called to cherish life, to care for wounded lives — so many wounded lives, so many — to restore dignity to the lives of everyone” because it is the basis for building a culture of peace, he said, highlighting that the feast also marks the World Day of Peace.

The pope’s message for the World Day of Peace was published in December and is shared with heads of state around the world by Vatican ambassadors. In it, Pope Francis called on all nations to eliminate the death penalty, to divert a fixed percentage of arms spending to a global fund to fight hunger and climate change, to cancel the international debt of developing nations and to respect human life.

After praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square following Mass, the pope urged the leaders of countries with Christian roots and traditions “to set a good example by canceling or reducing as much as possible the debts of the poorest countries.” The Jubilee Year focuses on the “remission of debts” and it also “asks us to translate this remission on the social level, so that no person, no family, no people will be crushed by debt.”

He also expressed his “grateful appreciation to all those in many areas of conflict who are working for dialogue and negotiations. We pray that fighting will cease on every front and there will be a decisive aim for peace and reconciliation.”

While Pope Francis presided over the morning liturgy and gave the homily, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, was the main celebrant at the altar. He was joined by Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister.

The pope took a moment before the Mass to pose for a photo with more than a dozen young people dressed as the three kings who visited Jesus. In Germany, Austria and other regions of Europe, children known as “sternsingers,” or star singers, sing carols and raise money for charity between Christmas and Epiphany each year. And, after the Mass, Pope Francis spent nearly 10 minutes greeting children and handing them chocolate Santas as his aide pushed him in his wheelchair down the central aisle of the basilica.

In his homily, the pope reiterated his proposal in his peace day message for “a firm commitment to respect the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to the future.”

“Let us entrust this new year to Mary, Mother of God. May we learn, like her, to discover God’s greatness in the little things of life,” he said.

God chose to act “through littleness and hiddenness” by coming into the world as a tiny helpless child born of a woman in a manger to be “one of us and, for this, he is able to save us,” the pope said.

“Jesus never yielded to the temptation of performing great signs and imposing himself on others, as the devil had suggested,” he said. Instead, “by the frailty of his humanity and his concern for the weak and vulnerable, Jesus shows us the face of God,” who is always near, compassionate and merciful “to those suffering in body and spirit.”

Mary reminds the faithful “that Jesus came in the flesh, and that we encounter him above all in our daily life, in our own frail humanity and that of all those whom we encounter each day,” the pope said.

“If he, who is the Son of God, became so small as to be held in a mother’s arms, cared for and nursed, this means that today, too, he comes among us in all those who need similar care: in every sister and brother we meet, in everyone who needs our attention and tender care,” he said.

The pope asked the faithful to entrust to Mary “this new Jubilee Year. Let us entrust to her our questions, our worries, our sufferings, our joys and all the concerns that we bear in our hearts” and to “entrust to her the whole world, so that hope may be reborn and peace may finally spring up for all the peoples of the earth.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The United States saw an increase of about 18% in homelessness this year, a new record high, according to a federal report.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released Dec. 27 its 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report: Part 1: Point-in-Time Estimates, an annual report of the number of individuals in settings including shelters, temporary housing, and those who are unsheltered. The report found more than 771,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2024, marking an 18% increase over the previous year. It is the highest number observed by the annual report since it began in 2007.

The report attributed the rise to a mix of factors including lack of affordable housing, a surge in migration, inflation, stagnant wages, “persisting effects of systemic racism” and natural disasters.

Officials said the report likely does not represent current circumstances, citing changes in some policies and conditions.

“No American should face homelessness, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring every family has access to the affordable, safe, and quality housing they deserve,” HUD Agency Head Adrianne Todman said in a statement. Todman said that while the data from January 2024 “no longer reflects the situation we are seeing, it is critical that we focus on evidence-based efforts to prevent and end homelessness.”

Todman pointed to the 55.2% reduction in the number of homeless veterans since 2010 as a sign of success. HUD officials also cited an 8% decrease in the number of veterans experiencing homelessness in 2024 from the previous year.

HUD officials blamed migration for having a “particularly notable impact on family homelessness, which rose 39% from 2023-2024.” However, they argued the data was collected before President Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at reducing unauthorized border crossings by asylum-seekers, and that rents have since stabilized.

The report also blamed the expiration of the extended child tax credit — enacted as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic — as also exacerbating the homelessness crisis.

The expanded child tax credit, part of the COVID-19-era 2021 American Rescue Plan, sought to help alleviate parents’ rising consumer costs during the pandemic, granting eligible recipients $3,000 per child between 6 and 17 years old, and $3,600 per child under the age of 6. Reports from the U.S. Census Bureau, academic institutions and other nonprofit research organizations found a significant decrease in child poverty as a result of the policy.

Lawmakers allowed the expanded version of the credit to expire at the end of 2021, despite calls from some Catholic groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. An attempt to reach a bipartisan compromise to renew it fell apart in 2022.

The report also pointed to an increase in temporary homelessness in Hawaii as a result of the Maui wildfire.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the U.S. has a shortage of 7.3 million rental homes that are affordable and available to renters with extremely low incomes, defined as incomes “at or below either the federal poverty guideline or 30% of their area median income, whichever is greater.” The group’s data shows that only 34 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households.

According to Pew Research, 55% of Catholic households make under $50,000, including 36% making under $30,000.

“Increased homelessness is the tragic, yet predictable, consequence of underinvesting in the resources and protections that help people find and maintain safe, affordable housing,” Renee Willis, incoming interim CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a Dec. 27 statement about the HUD report. “As advocates, researchers, and people with lived experience have warned, the number of people experiencing homelessness continues to increase as more people struggle to afford sky-high housing costs.”

On its website, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stated the bishops believe “decent, safe, and affordable housing is a human right.”

“Catholic teaching supports the right to private property, but recognizes that communities and the government have an obligation to ensure the housing needs of all are met, especially poor and vulnerable people and their families,” it stated. “In a time of rising homelessness and when many workers’ wages are stagnant and living expenses are rising, it is important to ensure housing security.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Former President Jimmy Carter died Dec. 29 at his home in Plains, Georgia, his presidential library announced. At 100, Carter, who had been in hospice care since February 2023, was the longest-living U.S. president.

Carter, who served from 1977-1981 as the 39th U.S. president, was a devout Baptist, and faith played a large role in his life. He even taught Sunday school in his retirement. Carter was also the first U.S. president to host a pope at the White House.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” Chip Carter, the former president’s son, said in a statement issued through the Carter Center. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

The Carter Center’s statement also said there will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington in the late president’s memory, followed by a private interment in Plains. More information would be released in the coming days, the statement said.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement Dec. 30 the U.S. bishops also mourned Carter’s passing.

“His lifelong work on behalf of peace among nations will continue to serve as an inspiration for a world in need of peacemakers,” said Archbishop Broglio, who oversees the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services. “I pray for the repose of his soul and the comfort of his family.”

Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer of Atlanta said in a message of condolence to the Carter family that “President and Mrs. Carter exemplified the Christian faith.”

“Whether it was traveling the globe to advance democracy and champion human rights, or building houses with Habitat for Humanity and teaching Sunday school in Plains, Georgia, they made the world a better place,” Archbishop Hartmayer said. “Among the many honors that President Carter received were the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. With Rosalynn at his side, he always used these opportunities to teach by example what (it) means to be a servant-leader. Through the work of The Carter Center, they will continue to inspire generations to come.”

“While the world mourns the passing of a tireless advocate for peace and justice and the nation, a much respected leader, the Carter family grieves the death of a father, grandfather and great-grandfather,” he added. “On behalf of the clergy, consecrated religious and lay faithful of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, I wish to express my sincere sympathy and deepest condolences to President Carter’s children, Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy, and to their families. Rest assured of my prayers. May the Lord grant you his peace.”

Archbishop Hartmayer added that during his previous role as bishop of Savannah, Georgia, “I met the Carters at Maranatha Baptist Church in October 2019.”

“President Carter invited me to his Bible class, and that particular morning the lesson was on love,” he said. “He asked the question: ‘What must we do to receive God’s love?’ There was much enthusiasm among the young people in responding to the question. In the end, the President said: ‘Nothing, because God loves us first.’ I remained on for the church service and felt so very welcome. Later on that day, the President and First Lady attended a Mass that I celebrated in the local Catholic parish.”

A Vatican telegram released Dec. 30 expressed Pope Francis’ condolences. It said the pope recalled Carter’s “firm commitment, motivated by deep Christian faith, to the cause of reconciliation and peace between peoples, the defense of human rights and the welfare of the poor and those in need.”

Carter was predeceased by his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died Nov. 19, 2023, at 96. The couple was married for more than 77 years. He is survived by three sons: John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip), Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff); one daughter, Amy Lynn; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.

On Feb. 18, 2023, the Carter Center announced that following “a series of short hospital stays,” Carter had “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.”

“He has the full support of his family and his medical team,” the statement continued. “The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”

During his time in hospice care, Carter was able to partake in some activity, including attending funeral services for his late wife.

James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and married Rosalynn the same year.

He later returned to Plains, worked in peanut farming, and entered state politics, becoming governor of Georgia before winning the Democratic nomination for president in 1976. He served a single term as president.

As president, Carter argued for a government that was “competent and compassionate,” prompting civil service and environmental reforms.

He lost his bid for a second term amid rising consumer costs and foreign policy setbacks, including the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. His foreign policy accomplishments included the Panama Canal treaties, and a treaty between Egypt and Israel known as the Camp David Accords, per his official White House Historical Association biography.

In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In a statement at that time, the Nobel committee said Carter was awarded the prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

After his presidency, Carter taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown.

In a joint statement Dec. 29, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden said, “Today, America and the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman, and humanitarian.”

“Over six decades, we had the honor of calling Jimmy Carter a dear friend,” the Bidens said. “But, what’s extraordinary about Jimmy Carter, though, is that millions of people throughout America and the world who never met him thought of him as a dear friend as well. With his compassion and moral clarity, he worked to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us. He saved, lifted, and changed the lives of people all across the globe.”

The Bidens also said the “love shared between Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter is the definition of partnership and their humble leadership is the definition of patriotism. We will miss them both dearly, but take solace knowing they are reunited once again and will remain forever in our hearts.”

“To the entire Carter family, we send our gratitude for sharing them with America and the world. To their staff — from the earliest days to the final ones — we have no doubt that you will continue to do the good works that carry on their legacy,” they continued. “And to all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning — the good life — study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility. He showed that we are (a) great nation because we are a good people — decent and honorable, courageous and compassionate, humble and strong.”

The White House said Biden scheduled an official state funeral to be held in Washington for Carter on Jan. 9, with a national day of mourning the same day. He ordered U.S. flags to fly at half-staff for 30 days from the date of his death.

President-elect Donald Trump said in a statement, “Those of us who have been fortunate to have served as President understand this is a very exclusive club, and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of leading the Greatest Nation in History.”

“The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude,” Trump said. “Melania and I are thinking warmly of the Carter Family and their loved ones during this difficult time. We urge everyone to keep them in their hearts and prayers.”

The Carters were also advocates of Habitat for Humanity, building affordable housing as on-site construction volunteers. Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, said in a statement, “We are deeply saddened by President Carter’s passing, and our prayers are with the Carter family.”

“President and Mrs. Carter began volunteering with Habitat for Humanity near their home in southwest Georgia more than 40 years ago, and soon brought worldwide attention to the need for decent and affordable housing,” Reckford said. “We are grateful for the incredible impact the Carters have had on Habitat and on the families who have benefited from their shining example. The Carters put Habitat for Humanity on the map, and their legacy lives on in every family we serve around the world.”

Carter also had notable exchanges with Catholic leaders during his presidency. In a congratulatory telegram to Carter upon his election in November 1976, St. Paul VI offered him “cordial felicitations.” The pope said he would pray Carter would lead the American people “in the way of authentic progress, true peace and fraternal concern, with liberty and justice for all.”

Carter’s inauguration featured faith leaders from multiple traditions, including a benediction given by then-Archbishop John R. Roach of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

During his administration, Carter hosted St. John Paul II at the White House on Oct. 6, 1979, while the latter was on his first papal trip to the United States, making him the first pope to ever visit the White House.

During remarks thanking the pope for his visit, Carter said, “As human beings each acting for justice in the present — and striving together for a common future of peace and love — let us not wait so long for ourselves and for you to meet again. Welcome to our country, our new friend.” The pope responded by embracing the president.

Remarking on the White House meeting between the then-president and pontiff, Archbishop Hartmayer said, “Their mutual respect and affection for each other continued throughout the years as they both championed peace and human rights.”

Carter later visited St. John Paul at the Vatican on June 24, 1980. During his visit to Italy, Carter also paid a visit to a Venetian monastery for prayers and breakfast.

“He wanted to know everything,” Father Gilíes Zaramella, the abbot, later told a news service. “He asked about all the paintings, the buildings, and talked to each of us individually and asked what we do.”

ROME (CNS) – A Holy Door is an image of God, who awaits the return of his children with open arms, said the archpriest of Rome’s Basilica of St. John Lateran.

Cardinal Baldassare Reina, papal vicar for Rome and archpriest of the basilica, which is the Diocese of Rome’s cathedral, opened the Holy Door there Dec. 29 as bishops around the world launched the Holy Year 2025 in their dioceses.

“It is not important how far we have strayed; it is not relevant what we have done, wasted or ruined,” the cardinal said in his homily at Mass after opening the door. “The moment we have decided to return we will never find a closed door, but only an embrace that welcomes and blesses.”

Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24 and at Rome’s Rebibbia prison Dec. 26 but assigned the archpriests of the city’s other major basilicas to preside over the ceremonies of the other major pilgrimage sites. Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, coadjutor archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, was to open the Holy Door there Jan. 1, and U.S. Cardinal James M. Harvey, archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, was to preside over the opening of the Holy Door there Jan. 5.

In his homily Dec. 29, Cardinal Reina said that crossing the threshold of a Holy Door during the Jubilee Year is a sign that one accepts God’s call to return to him and to live as his son or daughter and as a brother or sister to others.

The open doors, he said, are “an invitation to respond to God’s grace with an open heart, allowing ourselves to be reconciled by his embrace that restores our dignity and enables us to build relationships of authentic fraternity.”

(OSV News) – The sea of 65,000 people gathered in prayer at the foot of the Indiana War Memorial is among Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens’ most vivid memories from the summer’s National Eucharistic Congress. It was July 20, and the crowd had just processed with the Eucharistic through downtown Indianapolis. The bishop had a unique view from his place on the memorial’s steps, where an altar had been prepared for him to lead Eucharistic adoration.

That moment was one of many that made Bishop Cozzens, leader of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, and board chairman of National Eucharistic Congress Inc., feel “that great privilege of having been at the heart of something that Jesus was doing that’s so much bigger than us.”

For many attendees, Saturday’s Eucharistic procession was a pinnacle event in the five-day congress, the first national Eucharistic congress held in the United States since 1941.

The U.S. gathering – and related events preceding it – was a major undertaking in 2024. As the pinnacle of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ three-year National Eucharistic Revival, it is already proving to be a milestone in the life of the U.S. church, and in the lives of the Catholics who participated.

“The spiritual power of the events exceeded my expectations,” Bishop Cozzens said. “I always know it’s good when we get together and pray and honor the Lord, but I didn’t expect the depth of conversions and the power of transformation in people’s lives. Nor did I expect the experience of unity and joy would be so palpable at all the events.”

The leader of Minnesota’s Crookston diocese, Bishop Cozzens was chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis when the revival launched in 2022. Its plans included the 2024 congress — a national gathering of Catholics for worship, prayer, speakers and education.

Then, with the support of priests who would make it happen, congress leaders added something novel — a National Eucharistic Pilgrimage with not one, but four, routes, starting in California, Connecticut, Minnesota and Texas and meeting in Indianapolis for the congress.

The eight-week pilgrimage across 65 dioceses involved Masses, Holy Hours and community worship alongside a series of processions — some encircling a block, others stretching more than 15 miles — as the young adults who served as the full-routes’ “perpetual pilgrims” made their way, parish by parish, to Indianapolis.

Covering more than 6,500 miles, it was, as congress organizers had promised, “the largest Eucharistic procession in history.”

Bishop Cozzens admits that he had big expectations for the pilgrimage and congress, but both actually exceeded them, beginning with the Mass launching the pilgrimage’s northern route from near the Mississippi River headwaters in his own diocese. That Mass and accompanying mile-long Eucharistic procession has led to a local revival in his northwestern Minnesota diocese, he said. He sees it as a microcosm of the congress’s national impact.

The congress’s organizers continue to collect testimonies from people who were dramatically affected by their encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist. Attendees describe a deeper belief in the Real Presence, a profound experience of God’s mercy and love, and an increased sense of faith, hope, love and gratitude. Some attribute emotional and even physical healings to the congress. “The Congress changed my life,” one man wrote of his experience. “I can’t explain it any other way.”

While the congress had more than 50,000 registrants and thousands of others joining via livestreams and broadcasts, the pilgrimage had more than 250,000 participants along its four routes.

Marina Frattaroli, a perpetual pilgrim on the pilgrimage’s Eastern route who became Catholic in 2022 because of the National Eucharistic Revival, said her faith has continued to deepen after the pilgrimage. She continues to orientate her life in Manhattan and work in law around Mass and Holy Hours, she said.

In the course of her regular travels, the pilgrimage and congress serve as a touchstone with other Catholics, she said. “It’s something that really encourages and inspires people, whether they were part of it, or whether they heard that it had happened.”

“There’s a real boost and momentum and belief that God is truly at work in this moment in time, and there’s a positive direction that the church is heading from,” she said. “I think it has brought in a real hope.”

Jonathan Day, with his wife and six children, ages 4 to 14, traveled the entire northern pilgrimage route alongside its eight perpetual pilgrims and their chaplains. A political science professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, Day said that he had hoped the journey would allow his children to see many Catholics express their faith and “to give our family the experience of following Jesus no matter how hard it gets.” Those hopes were fulfilled.

While the adventure was personally edifying, Day said he thinks “the full fruit” of the pilgrimage is yet to be revealed.

“There’s so much that’s going to happen over the years, decades … that we will eventually realize that that was because of the pilgrimage,” he said.

The congress’s immediate impact is perhaps felt most acutely at St. John the Evangelist, which, thanks to its location directly across from the main entrance of the Indiana Convention Center, served as the congress’s perpetual adoration chapel.

Eucharistic adorers at St. John continue to pray for the thousands upon thousands of handwritten petitions placed in the sanctuary during the congress. The petitions speak to deep needs: healing for a broken marriage; recovery from cancer; forgiveness for a long-ago abortion. The petitions fill baskets, and adorers slowly revisited them, one small handful of papers at a time.

Father Rick Nagel, St. John’s pastor, said he gets phone calls and hears confessions from Catholics who have returned to practicing the faith because of the congress. Meanwhile, his parish has 52 people attending classes for the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults with plans to be baptized or enter full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter — its largest number in memory, and more than double the average. Several attribute their interest in the church directly to the congress, and others have extraordinary stories of how they encountered the church, Father Nagel said.

What’s most remarkable to the longtime pastor is that several OCIA participants are seeking to join the church despite not knowing any practicing Catholics — a huge deviation from the norm that the priest attributes to the congress’s far-reaching graces.

God’s grace, he said, “just got showered upon this country and certainly the city” of Indianapolis, he said.

Bishop Cozzens said he has heard anecdotally that there’s an uptick in OCIA classes around the country, although actual numbers are not expected to be available until spring 2025.

While some of the congress’s immediate impact is evident, Eucharistic revival is a generational project, Bishop Cozzens said. Another National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is planned for early summer 2024 from Indianapolis to Los Angeles. Bishop Cozzens is involved in planning the next U.S. congress, and he expects its year to be announced sometime in 2025. From there, national congresses may be held every three or four years, like the Vatican-supported International Eucharistic Congresses, he said.

However, for Bishop Cozzens — and many, many others — the 2024 congress, “has become one of those experiences that will kind of mark your life,” he said.

(OSV News) – Bishops worldwide celebrated the opening of the 2025 Holy Year Dec. 29 with Masses in their cathedrals and co-cathedrals to mark the jubilee, which is themed “Pilgrims of Hope.”

The Masses were celebrated with the Rite of the Opening of the Jubilee Year. In the Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan began Mass at the back of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan with a prayer opening what he called “the Holy Year of Hope.”

The prayer called God “the hope that does not disappoint, the beginning and the end” and asked him to bless the “pilgrim journey this Holy Year.”

“Bind up the wounds of hearts that are broken, loosen the chains that hold us slaves of sin, and grant your people joy of the Spirit so that they may walk with renewed hope toward their longed-for destiny, Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns forever and ever,” he prayed.

That prayer was followed by a Gospel reading from John 14, in which Jesus explained to his disciples his relationship to God the Father, and then a reading from the papal bull announcing the Jubilee Year. Then, Archbishop Dolan said, “Hail, O Cross of Christ, our only true hope,” to which the congregation replied: “You are our hope. We will never be confounded.”

Jubilee prayers were repeated across the United States as bishops opened the Jubilee Year on the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, which is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas Day. In some dioceses, the opening rite preceded a procession of the faithful to or within the cathedral for Mass. The procession was to include a jubilee cross, a cross of significance for the local church designated for a special liturgical role during the Jubilee Year.

A jubilee or holy year is a special year in the life of the church currently celebrated every 25 years. The most recent ordinary jubilee was in 2000, with Pope Francis calling for an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015-2016.

Jubilee years have been held on regular intervals in the Catholic Church since 1300, but they trace their roots to the Jewish tradition of marking a jubilee year every 50 years.

According to the Vatican website for the jubilee, these years in Jewish history were “intended to be marked as a time to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation, and involved the forgiveness of debts, the return of misappropriated land, and a fallow period for the fields.”

On Dec. 24, Pope Francis opened the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to launch the holy year. Coinciding with other diocesan celebrations Dec. 29, Cardinal Baldo Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, opened Holy Doors at St. John Lateran, the pope’s cathedral.

Holy Doors will also open at Rome’s other two major basilicas, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls, Jan. 1 and Jan. 5, respectively. Pope Francis also opened Holy Doors Dec. 26 at Rome’s Rebibbia prison, which Vatican officials said was a papal first. Unlike the practice in the Year of Mercy, diocesan cathedrals will not designate their own holy doors.

At the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral Dec. 29, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich began his homily with an explanation of the origins of the jubilee year.

“It is rooted in the Book of Leviticus, in which the people come together and realized that they needed a fresh start. They needed an opportunity to begin again,” he said. “And so debts were forgiven, sentences were commuted, enemies who fought each other were asked not to engage in battle but in reconciliation — and the church has taken that same spirit and each 25 years proclaims a jubilee year because we all need a fresh start.”

“It’s kind of a religious mulligan,” he said, referring in golf to a second chance after a poor shot. “We get to start all over again. We get to have a fresh moment, a new beginning, in which we allow the mercy of God to uproot and invade our otherwise very human sense of justice that focuses on retribution rather than reconciliation. We need a fresh start, a new moment in life, and that is what this year is to be for us.”

Cardinal Cupich said that it is the “Holy Family themselves that give us an example of what it means to be those pilgrims of hope.”

“In the Gospels, the only time that we see the entire Holy Family together is when they’re going someplace, when they’re on pilgrimage. They’re defined by being pilgrims,” he said. “They are the ones who remind us that we always have to take another step in life. We can never become complacent about our faith, about becoming more human.”

In his homily, Cardinal Dolan focused on the “three families” established by God — the human family, the natural family into which each person is born, and the supernatural family of the church which is entered through baptism and includes the communion of saints.

As with natural families, members of the church may drift away from, get mad at or become embarrassed or hurt by their “spiritual family, the church,” he said.

“But that’s also true of our natural, earthly families, isn’t it?,” he asked. “Our identity as a member of this family, the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church, cannot be erased.

“I’m as much a Catholic as I am a Dolan – as much as, at times, both of those family names might exasperate me,” he added with a smile.

Like a natural family, the church is also always a home ready to welcome its members, he said.

In Boston at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Archbishop Richard G. Henning also reflected on the gift of family and its central importance during the inauguration of the Jubilee Year, one of his first official acts as archbishop of Boston.

Lives shared with family and friends give people a sense of joy, contentment and hope, which is underscored both by the feast of the Holy Family and within the Jubilee Year, he said.

Living in communion with God and one another is where people can find hope, he said. In a world that is often violent and confusing, he added, hope and peace come “from God alone.”

“Maybe it was COVID that unveiled that truth for us most particularly: We need to be with one another. We need to be for one another,” he said. “And in a very real sense, God gives us the gift of each other.”

At the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin preached about the Holy Family’s journeys, their human dynamics, and the meaning of the Holy Year.

To receive the forgiveness and hope offered in the Holy Year, “we set off like pilgrims,” he said. “Pilgrims are people on (the) move. Pilgrims are not wanderers with no particular place to go. Pilgrims are people with destinations. They know where they are going, and therefore they know who they are. Their destination is the kingdom of heaven, where our hope in Jesus Christ will be vindicated.”

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo celebrated the jubilee in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, where he focused his homily on the day’s reading from the book of Sirach, the identity of Jesus, and the Gospel account of Jesus pointing to God the father when talking with his earthly parents after they found him at the temple.

“Pope Francis says we should be looking for Jesus and walking with him as Mary and Joseph did,” he said, stressing the role of Mary as the perfect disciple of hope.

“In this discipleship of hope, we should also be looking for those who are at the margins and are outcasts,” he continued, saying that they are people who would help us “to hear again and understand again the identity of Jesus.”

The cardinal also pointed out that the Texas archdiocese celebrated a second opening Mass at St. Mary Cathedral Basilica in Galveston that day.

He encouraged the faithful to share this hope in God. “Find one person who seems to be out of hope, maybe anxious, maybe despairing. Take their cause to yourself. Become friendly. Allow your sense of hope that you gained from your Christian faith, your Catholic understanding of faith, shine on them,” Cardinal DiNardo said.

At the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr said that “in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus makes clear that his own mission is to bring jubilee.”

“In the synagogue at Nazareth, he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor,” he said in his homily. “He states, ‘The spirit of the Lord has been given to me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and recover of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ After reading, Jesus announces, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'”

“Jesus shows us what God’s kingdom of justice, compassion and freedom looks like,” Archbishop Schnurr said, “and he invites us to join him in making it a reality.”

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the jubilee cross that led the faithful into the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels was from its dedication in 2002. It was explained it would remain on display for veneration during the Holy Year as a “sign that the cross of Christ is the firm anchor of our hope,” and with the eyes fixed on Jesus, “we can weather the storms of life with the hope flowing from his resurrection.”

During his homily, Archbishop José H. Gomez talked about how fitting it was that the rite of opening the Jubilee Year in dioceses across the world took place during the feast of the Holy Family.

“Every jubilee reminds us that we are all on pilgrimage,” he said, pointing to the image of the Holy Family making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. Hope, he said, “is born on Christmas in the child who comes to us in the silence of the night.”

During this Jubilee Year, the Lord is “again knocking on the door of our hearts” to be open to him, the archbishop said.

“And as children of God, we are called to grow in the image and likeness of our brother Jesus, every day more and more confirming our lives to his,” he continued. “This is the purpose and the goal of our earthly pilgrimage: That we become like Jesus is God’s plan for our life, for your life and my life. His will is that we be sanctified, that we become holy as Jesus is holy.”

Some Masses included the hymn “Pilgrims of Hope,” which the Holy See commissioned for the Jubilee Year.

More than 30 million pilgrims are expected in Rome over the course of the Jubilee Year, with many of them seeking a special indulgence offered in the Holy Year. However, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship, the Jubilee indulgence may be obtained in Catholics’ local dioceses by visiting cathedrals or other churches or sacred places designated by the local bishop.

Some bishops offered the Holy Year’s plenary indulgence during the Dec. 29 Masses. The Holy Year will end at St. Peter’s Jan. 6, 2026, with diocesan celebrations ending Dec. 28, 2025.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – In late November, during a brief audience with people involved in the sport of motorcycle racing, Pope Francis asked for prayers, joking that “my work is very accelerated, and my bike has aged and doesn’t work properly!”

Pope Francis, who celebrated his 88th birthday Dec. 17, mostly uses a wheelchair instead of walking and presides over rather than concelebrates most public liturgies. Still, he had a 2024 full of important engagements, the longest trip of his papacy and major preparations for the Holy Year 2025, which he opened Dec. 24.

Health-wise, 2024 was a better year for the pope than 2023, when he ended up in the hospital twice: once for hernia surgery and once for a respiratory infection.

He did have a bout of bronchitis in February, canceled some meetings in September because of the flu and fell in December, hitting his chin on his bedside table and sporting a significant bruise on the right side of his face when he created 21 new cardinals Dec. 7.

For 12 days in early September, Pope Francis visited Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore – the longest trip of his papacy in terms of distance and time away from Rome. At his first general audience after his return, he publicly thanked God for allowing him “to do as an old pope what I would have liked to do as a young Jesuit,” which was to travel to Asia to preach the Gospel.

And two weeks later, he was boarding a plane again, flying to Luxembourg and then on to Belgium. He closed out his 2024 travels with a one-day visit to the French island of Corsica Dec. 15.

Excluding the opening of the Jubilee, his most anticipated event of 2024 was the final, four-weeklong assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, the culmination of a process of listening and prayer that he launched in the fall of 2021.

In his homily at the synod’s opening Mass, Pope Francis said it was not a “parliamentary assembly,” but an effort to understand the history, dreams and hopes of “our brothers and sisters scattered around the world inspired by our same faith, moved by the same desire for holiness.”

He opened the assembly’s first working session responding to criticism that it was no longer a synod “of bishops,” since he had made dozens of lay women and men, priests and women religious voting members of the body.

“It is certainly not a matter of replacing one with the other, rallying to the cry: ‘Now it is our turn!'” the pope said.

Instead, the composition of the assembly “expresses a way of exercising the episcopal ministry consistent with the living tradition of the church and with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council,” which emphasized the responsibility of all the baptized for the mission of the church.

The assembly ended with the members approving a final document, and the pope ordering its publication as his own.

A month later, Pope Francis published a note telling bishops the final document “participates in the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter, and as such, I ask that it be accepted” and implemented.

The final document outlined key priorities for the church, including increased participation of the laity through new ministries and adjusted governing structures like pastoral councils, greater transparency and accountability among church leadership and creating space for previously marginalized groups.

But Pope Francis had taken off the table, at least temporarily, some of the more complex, sensitive issues raised in the listening sessions and at the first synod assembly in 2023.

In March he set up 10 study groups to look at issues such as ministry by women, seminary education, relations between bishops and religious communities and the role of nuncios; the groups were asked to work on proposals to give the pope by June 2025.

He told synod members those questions required more time, but he promised that “this is not the classical way of postponing decisions indefinitely.”

The year also saw the publication of Pope Francis’ fourth encyclical, “Dilexit nos” (“He loved us”), subtitled, “On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ.”

Prompted in part by the 350th-anniversary celebrations of the apparitions of the Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial, France, Pope Francis looked at how the traditional devotion to the Sacred Heart should help people recognize they are loved by God and called to love others.

Pope Francis said the document should be read with his previous encyclicals, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home” and “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship” because church teaching on social issues flows from “our encounter with the love of Jesus Christ.”

The horrors of the ongoing wars, particularly the fighting in Ukraine and the Middle East, were a daily concern of Pope Francis, but some of his comments led to controversy during the year.

In a televised interview in March, Pope Francis called for Russia and Ukraine to have the “courage of the white flag,” a term usually associated with surrender, and which therefore caused consternation among people who believe Ukraine has a right and duty to defend itself from Russian aggression.

Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, told reporters that the image of the white flag — a term used by the interviewer in posing the question — was picked up by the pope “to indicate the cessation of hostilities, a truce reached with the courage of negotiation,” not a call to surrender.

In November, the pope joined many Western leaders in sadly marking the 1,000th day since Russia launched its large-scale attack on Ukraine.

“I know well that no human word can protect their lives from the daily shelling, nor console those who mourn the dead, nor heal the wounded, nor repatriate the children, nor free the prisoners, nor mitigate the harsh effects of winter, nor bring back justice and peace,” he wrote in a letter to his nuncio in Kyiv.

He promised Ukrainians that he would continue his prayers to God, “the only source of life, hope and wisdom, that he would convert hearts and enable them to start paths of dialogue, reconciliation and concord.”

Pope Francis also called constantly for peace in the Middle East, the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in October 2023 and for humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

But the pope drew criticism from Israeli officials in mid-November after Vatican News published an excerpt from a new book in which Pope Francis said, “According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide. It should be investigated carefully to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies.”

Yaron Sideman, the Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, posted on X a few hours later: “There was a genocidal massacre on 7 October 2023 of Israeli citizens, and since then, Israel has exercised its right of self-defense against attempts from seven different fronts to kill its citizens.”

As the year drew to a close, Pope Francis called for “a ceasefire on all war fronts” in time for Christmas and the start of the Holy Year.