VATICAN (CNS): Two days after opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica to inaugurate the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis will travel to a Rome prison to open a Holy Door as a “tangible sign of the message of hope” for people in prisons around the world, the Vatican announced at a news conference on October 28.
The pope will go to Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of Rome on December 26, “a symbol of all the prisons dispersed throughout the world,” to deliver a message of hope to prisoners, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation’s section for new evangelisation and the chief organiser of the Holy Year 2025, explained.
Pope Francis will open the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on December 24. He will then open the Holy Doors at the major basilicas of St. John Lateran on December 29, St. Mary Major on January 1 and St. Paul Outside the Walls on January 5.
In his bull of indiction formally proclaiming the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis wrote that during the Holy Year he will have close to his heart “prisoners who, deprived of their freedom, feel daily the harshness of detention and its restrictions, lack of affection and, in more than a few cases, lack of respect for their persons.”
In the document, the pope also called on governments to “undertake initiatives aimed at restoring hope” for incarcerated persons during the Holy Year, such as expanding forms of amnesty and social reintegration programmes.
Archbishop Fisichella announced that the Vatican had signed an agreement with Italy’s minister of justice and the government commissioner for Rome to implement reintegration programmes for incarcerated individuals by involving them in activities during the Jubilee Year.
The archbishop also outlined the schedule of cultural offerings leading up to the Jubilee Year, during which the city of Rome estimates that 30 million people will visit the Italian capital.
The Vatican will organise a concert of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, to be performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in Rome on November 3; three art exhibitions in November and December, including a display of rare Christian icons from the collection of the Vatican Museums; and a concert from the Sistine Chapel Choir two days before the opening of the Holy Door.
Archbishop Fisichella also unveiled the official mascot of the Holy Year 2025: “Luce” [Italian for light], a cartoon pilgrim dressed in a yellow raincoat, mud-stained boots, wearing a missionary cross and holding a pilgrim’s staff. Luce’s glowing eyes feature the shape of scallop shells, a symbol of pilgrimage and hope.
The mascot, he said, was inspired by the Church’s desire “to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth.”
Luce will also be the mascot of the Holy See’s pavillion at Expo 2025, which will take place in Osaka, Japan, from April to October 2025. The pavillion—which will be inside Italy’s national pavilion—will have the theme “Beauty brings hope,” and display the 17th-century painting The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio—the only one of his works housed in the Vatican Museums.
