Pope Francis prayed that the Jubilee Year may become “a season of hope” and reconciliation in a world at war and suffering humanitarian crises, especially in Gaza and Ukraine, as he opened the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve. And in his “Urbi et Orbi” Message, to the city of Rome and the world on Christmas Day, he called for “the silencing” of the guns in the Middle East, Ukraine, Myanmar and Sudan and to respond to the humanitarian crises, especially in Gaza, and to overcome the divisions and poverty across the globe.
In his Urbi et Orbi address from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, he wished the world “Happy Christmas” as he commemorated the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, in Bethlehem, over two-thousand years ago, and said, Jesus is “the door of God’s heart” which “is always open.”
“This is the meaning of the Holy Door of the Jubilee, which I opened last night here in Saint Peter’s Basilica,” he said. “It represents Jesus, the Door of salvation open for all. Jesus is the Door that the Father of mercies has opened in the midst of our world, in the midst of history, so that all of us can return to him.”
He invited people worldwide, “Let us be reconciled with God, and then we will be reconciled with ourselves and able to be reconciled with one another, even our enemies. God’s mercy can do all things. It unties every knot; it tears down every wall of division; it dispels hatred and the spirit of revenge. Come! Jesus is the Door of Peace.”
He said: “Often we halt at the threshold of that Door [of peace]; we lack the courage to cross it, because it challenges us to examine our lives. Entering through that Door calls for the sacrifice involved in taking a step forward, a small step for something great, leaving behind our disputes and divisions, and surrendering ourselves to the outstretched arms of the Child who is the Prince of Peace.”
In a world torn by some 51 armed conflicts, Pope Francis invited “every individual, and all peoples and nations, to find the courage needed to walk through that Door, to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sound of arms and overcome divisions!”
He called for the “silencing of the guns” in Ukraine torn by war since Feb. 24, 2022, and for “the boldness needed to open the door to negotiation and to gestures of dialogue and encounter, in order to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
He appealed that “the sound of arms be silenced in the Middle East!” He mentioned in particular “the Christian communities in Palestine and Israel, particularly in Gaza [to whom he speaks by phone every evening]” where “the humanitarian situation is extremely grave.” He called yet again for a ceasefire, the release of the Israeli hostages, and for “aid be given to the people worn out by hunger and by war” since Oct. 7, 2023.
He expressed his “closeness” to “the Christian community in Lebanon, especially in the south” hit by war some months ago, and “to that in Syria, at this most delicate time” after the sudden fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8, and the setting up of a provisional government there.
He prayed that “the doors of dialogue and peace be flung open throughout the [Middle East] region, devastated by conflict.” In this conflict, he said, “I also think of the Libyan people and encourage them to seek solutions that enable national reconciliation,” something that has been lacking since the fall of Mummar Gadaffi in October 2011.
Turning to the Africa continent, Francis called for “a new season of hope” there, and especially for help “to the families of thousands of children who are dying from an outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” He called for peace “for the people of the East of that country” and “in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Mozambique” where “the humanitarian crisis that affects them is caused mainly by armed conflicts and the scourge of terrorism, aggravated by the devastating effects of climate change, resulting in the loss of life and the displacement of millions of people.”
He prayed too for peace too for “the nations of the Horn of Africa,” and appealed to the international community to continue its efforts “to facilitate access to humanitarian aid for the civilian population of Sudan and to initiate new negotiations for a ceasefire.”
He appealed yet again for peace in Myanmar where “the ongoing clash of arms” causes great suffering to the people there forcing many to flee their homes.
The first Latin American pope next turned to the American continent and prayed that “the Infant Jesus” may “inspire the political authorities and all people of good will…to find as soon as possible effective solutions, in justice and truth, to promote social harmony, particularly in Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia and Nicaragua,” to “advance the common good and respect the dignity of each person there, surmounting political divisions.”
He prayed that the Jubilee Year “may be an opportunity to tear down all walls of separation: the ideological walls that so often mark political life, and the physical walls, such as the division that has affected the island of Cyprus for fifty years now and has rent its human and social fabric.” He called for “a mutually agreed solution” that can “put an end to the division in full respect for the rights and dignity of all the Cypriot communities.”
Returning to the Jubilee Year, he said, “Jesus is the wide-open Door that we are invited to enter, in order to rediscover the meaning of our existence and the sacredness of all life, and to recover the foundational values of the human family.” He said, Jesus “awaits each one of us, especially the most vulnerable” especially “the children, all those children who suffer from war and hunger” and “the elderly, so often forced to live in conditions of solitude and abandonment” and “those who have lost their homes or are fleeing their homelands,” as well as “all those who have lost their jobs or are unable to find work.”
Francis, who throughout his pontificate has given special attention to prisoners and on Dec.26 will open a Holy Door in Ribibbia, Rome’s largest prison, said “Jesus awaits prisoners who, everything notwithstanding, are still children of God.”
The Jesuit pope also cast a thought for “all those who endure persecution for their faith” in the world today and said “Jesus awaits them” and “they are many!”
On this Christmas Day, the pope said a special word of thanks to all those engaged “quietly and faithfully, in doing good and in serving others.” He mentioned especially “parents, educators and teachers,” “healthcare workers,” “the forces of order and all those men and women who carry out works of charity, especially missionaries throughout the world” who “bring light and comfort to so many people in difficulty.”
He concluded his Urbi et Orbi Christmas message by renewing his call that this Jubilee Year “may be an opportunity to forgive debts, especially those that burden the poorest countries.” He reminded people that “[e]ach of us is called to forgive those who have trespassed against us, because the Son of God, has forgiven our own. He came to heal us and forgive us. As pilgrims of hope, let us go out to meet him! Let us open to him the doors of our hearts, as he has opened to us the door of his heart.”
He then imparted God’s blessing to the tens of those gathered in St. Peter’s Square and people around the world.
The 88-year-old pope was in good form not only as he delivered his Urbi et Orbi message but also during the two and a half-hour ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica the previous night.
Inside the basilica, 6,000 people from all continents stood up, including cardinals, bishops, priests, consecrated women and men, and young and elderly lay faithful, and America’s Vatican correspondent, as the ceremony began with reading of the Gospel according to John where Jesus says “I am the door.”
At the same time, in St. Peter’s Square some 25,000 people, according to Vatican figures, braving the icy cold winter wind, watched the same scene on maxi-screens.
Then around 7.00 p.m on Dec. 24, Pope Francis opened the Jubilee Year in St. Peter’s Basilica, following a tradition started by Boniface VIII in the year 1300.
He did so by knocking four times on the Holy Door that was first opened in this basilica by Alexander VI on the night of Dec. 24, 1499. The trumpets sounded and the bells of St. Peter’s rang out as the bronze doors then opened, showing Pope Francis in his wheelchair, framed by the portals of the Holy Door, decked with flowers.
We watched in silence, on maxi screens (installed for the first time in the basilica), as the pope prayed in his wheelchair, a symbol of humility and hope in a world suffering from war and much poverty.
The motto of this Jubilee Year is “hope” and, after praying in silence, the Argentine pope became the first “pilgrim of hope” to pass through the Holy Door. He did so in his wheelchair, followed by representatives of God’s people from all continents and ecumenical guests from several other Christian churches, along with some cardinals and bishops. So too did the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri. An estimated 35 million pilgrims are expected to go through this Holy Door during this Jubilee Year which the pope will close on Jan. 6, 2026.
Pope Francis then went on to preside at the Christmas Mass of the Nativity that he concelebrated in Latin with 54 cardinals, 40 bishops and 182 priests. The Scripture readings were proclaimed in Spanish, English and Italians while the Prayers of the Faithful were read in Chinese, French, Arabic, Portuguese and Vietnamese.
“God has become one of us to make us like himself,” Pope Francis said in his homily, delivered in Italian, he recalled the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, in a lowly manger in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, when “Divine light shone amid the darkness of our world.”
“With the opening of the Holy Door,” he said, “we have inaugurated a new Jubilee, and each of us can enter the mystery of this extraordinary event. Tonight, the door of hope has opened wide to the world. Tonight, God speaks to each of us and says: there is hope also for you!”
Like the shepherds on that first Christmas night, Francis said we too are called to set out “with haste,” we are called “to recover lost hope, to renew that hope in our hearts, and to sow the seeds of hope amid the bleakness of our time and our world.”
He said, “Hope calls us—as Saint Augustine would say—to be upset with things that are wrong and to find the courage to change them. Hope calls us to become pilgrims in search of truth, dreamers who never tire, women and men open to being challenged by God’s dream of a new world where peace and justice reign.”
“The hope born this night,” the pope said, “does not tolerate the indifference of the complacent or the lethargy of those content with their own comforts; it does not accept the faux prudence of those who refuse to get involved for fear of making mistakes, or of those who think only of themselves.”
Pope Francis said, “Hope is incompatible with the detachment of those who refuse to speak out against evil and the injustices perpetrated at the expense of the poor.” Christian hope, he said, “requires of us, even now, to be bold, responsible and compassionate, in our anticipation of the fulfilment of the Lord’s promise.”
This Jubilee, the pope said, “is the season of hope in which we are invited to rediscover the joy of meeting the Lord.” It calls us “to spiritual renewal and commits us to the transformation of our world.”
Repeating much of what he said in the Bull of Indiction of the Holy Year, Pope Francis asked yet again, as John Paul II did in the Year 2000, that “the poorer countries burdened beneath unfair debts” be forgiven, and that “all those who are in bondage to forms of slavery old and new” be freed.
He called on all believers to bring hope “wherever hope has been lost, lives broken, promises unkept, dreams shattered and hearts overwhelmed by adversity.” He said, “We are called to bring hope to the weary who have no strength to carry on, the lonely oppressed by the bitterness of failure, and all those who are broken-hearted. To bring hope to the interminable, dreary days of prisoners, to the cold and dismal lodgings of the poor, and to all those places desecrated by war and violence.”
He said, “The Jubilee has now opened so that all people may receive the hope of the Gospel, hope of love and hope of forgiveness.”
With the opening of the Holy Door, Pope Francis has called for the Jubilee Year to be celebrated not only in Rome but also in every diocese throughout the world. He has asked all the bishops to open the Jubilee Year in their dioceses next Sunday, and to also open a Holy Door in their cathedrals so that all the faithful may have access to the plenary indulgence of the Jubilee Year and renew their faith and witness to the world.
