Pope Leo XIV closed out 2025 on Wednesday with New Year’s Eve vespers at St. Peter’s Basilica, asking that Rome be a welcoming place for foreigners and vulnerable people, including the young and lonely or fragile elderly, according to a report by The Associated Press.
The pope presided over the service in St. Peter’s Basilica as he gave thanks for the 2025 Holy Year, a once-every-quarter-century Catholic celebration that drew millions of pilgrims to Rome. In his homily, he also thanked the city of Rome and volunteers for helping keep crowds moving as pilgrims visited St. Peter’s and passed through its Holy Door.
Although Leo will officially close out the Jubilee on Jan. 6, he used his New Year’s Day Eve message to look back on what he described as a “time of grace.” He recalled that Pope Francis had inaugurated the Holy Year on Dec. 24, 2024, and he said he would like Rome to be a more welcoming place “again,” and “even more so after this time of grace.”
In the homily, Leo said: “I would like it to be so again, and I would say even more so after this time of grace,” and he added, “What can we wish for Rome? That it may be worthy of its little ones. Of children, of lonely and fragile elderly people, of families who struggle to get by, of men and women who have come from afar hoping for a dignified life,” the AP report said.
The pope’s remarks were delivered in the basilica with Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and other dignitaries in the pews, AP reported. The AP account also noted that 2025 was marked by the papal transition after Francis died in April and by the election of history’s first U.S.-born pope by the College of Cardinals.
In a separate development mentioned alongside the vespers report, the Vatican released year-end statistics that it said counted 3.2 million people participating in Vatican liturgies, audiences, Angelus prayers and Jubilee audiences during the Holy Year. The numbers were described as lower in the first quarter due to Francis’ long hospitalization and illness, then rising sharply after Leo’s May election, according to the AP report.