VATICAN CITY — An aging and frail Pope Francis began what may prove to be the most ambitious year of his papacy with a passionate call for global peace and unity even as conflicts around the world intensify.
The 88-year-old pontiff, his voice weak and using a wheelchair, formally launched the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee year at St. Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday.
His chair pushed up to the massive, ornate, 12-foot-high bronze “Holy Door,” Francis momentarily rose to his feet and knocked on the door five times before it was opened for him. After a moment of prayer, he was wheeled through the door and into the basilica — the first of millions of faithful expected to do the same over the next year.
On Christmas Day, Francis renewed calls for peace in Israel, where he called for a ceasefire with Hamas and a return of Israeli hostages. In Ukraine, he said negotiations for a “just and lasting peace” should start immediately.
“I invite every individual and the people of all nations … to become pilgrims of hope,” the Argentine pontiff said, speaking in Italian to tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square, despite cold weather. “We must silence the sounds of armed conflict and overcome our divisions. We must tear down all walls of separation between us.”
As pope, Francis has worked tirelessly to foster peace around the world — not just in Israel and Ukraine, but in war-torn parts of Africa, Syria, and the Caucasus, and in calming tensions between China and the west and improving dialogue between religions.
He has appeared, either in person or via video link, at scores of international summits and negotiations.
That will continue in 2025, as will the pope’s typically taxing travel schedule: a major pastoral visit to Turkey for the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea that formally defined Christian doctrine is already on the schedule, with as many as a half-dozen other trips reportedly in the works.
But the most ambitious part of the pope’s schedule will be many dozens of events connected to the Jubilee, including special events for groups as varied as police and soldiers, people with disabilities, musicians, older adults, government workers, prisoners, seminarians, teenagers, migrants, and journalists.
There will be “Holy Door” openings akin to Tuesday’s formal opening at Rome’s three other major basilica as well one at Rome’s infamous Rebibbia prison, not to mention countless special masses, blessings, and speeches.
The Vatican’s Jubilee, which is held every 25 or 50 years dating back to Pope Boniface VIII in 1300, was created to foster “the forgiveness of sins, conversion, and spiritual renewal.”
This year, it comes after years of disruptive repairs and modernizations in Rome (to the chagrin of locals) that carried a price tag of at least $5 billion and set the stage for what is expected to be a record number of tourist arrivals in the Italian capital.
It is being cast as the city’s most extensive face lift since at least the lead-up to the 1960 Olympics.
The city is expected to moan under the weight of at least 30 million visitors in 2025, around a third more than the number of visitors this year, itself already a record. With that many arrivals in 2025, Rome is expected to at least temporarily displace Paris as Europe’s most visited city.
Passing through the “Holy Doors” — which are opened only in Jubilee years — is a symbol of a passage between worlds, such as the transition between life and death.
In the past, a temporary wall was built over the doors between Jubilees and at the start of the Jubilee year the pope would strike the wall with a silver hammer before it was ceremoniously pulled down.
But given the fragile state of the last two pontiffs to celebrate a Jubilee, Pope John Paul II in 2000 and Francis this time around, that role was reduced to a few symbolic knocks on the door.
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