Pope Opens Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica

Dec 09, 2015

VATICAN: Pope Francis opened the Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica on Dec 8, the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, and he has decreed that Holy Doors be opened in all the cathedrals of the world on Dec 13. The doors are a concrete symbol of the Jubilee of Mercy that extends from Dec 8, 2015, to Nov 20, 2016.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella explained this and provided much information regarding the celebration of the Jubilee Year of Mercy at a crowded press conference in the Vatican on Dec 4, presided over by Federico Lombardi, S.J., the director of the Holy See Press Office. The Italian archbishop is President of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization to which the Pope has entrusted the organization of this Extraordinary Holy Year.

The celebration of the opening of the “Holy Door” in St Peter’s Basilica on Dec 8 has many features that bring back to mind the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Thus, for example, the ceremony was introduced with readings from the council’s four major documents (on the Church, the word of God, liturgy and the Church in the modern world), as well as with passages read from two very important texts of that historic assembly  on ecumenism and religious liberty. Furthermore, the Book of the Gospels was carried in procession at the Mass and placed on the same podium that stood by the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica during all sessions of the council “to make evident to everyone the primacy of the Word of God.”

At the end of Mass, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door in St Peter’s and passed through it. This very simple ceremony was transmitted on television worldwide.

The celebration concluded with a projection of photographs onto the face and cupola of St Peter’s, taken by some of the world’s great photographers, with images depicting  the theme of mercy, humanity, the natural world and climate change. Archbishop Fisichella said this event is inspired by the Pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si’ and is intended to present the beauty of creation as the United Nations summit on Climate Change is being held in Paris (that summit opened on Nov 30 and ends on Dec 11).

The Vatican archbishop highlighted the fact that “on Sunday, Dec 13, for the first time in the history of the Jubilee Years, there will be Holy Doors opened in all the cathedrals of the world.”

This is happening because “Pope Francis has desired that the Jubilee of Mercy unfold, above all, in the particular churches, and it is precisely for this reason that he wanted to open the Holy Door in the Cathedral of Bangui in the Central African Republic last Sunday, Nov 29, making it become a world capital of peace and an instrument of mercy.”

“It is a highly significant gesture that makes one understand how much value the Extraordinary Jubilee will have for the life of the Church when it is lived within the context of the daily events of our communities,” Archbishop Fisichella stated. -- Gerard O’ Connell, America Magazine