Pope Leo XIV closed the Vatican’s 2025 Holy Year on Tuesday with a Mass celebrating the feast of Epiphany, denouncing consumerism and anti-foreigner sentiment as he ended the Jubilee at St. Peter’s Basilica.
With cardinals and diplomats watching, Leo kneeled in prayer on the stone floor at the threshold of the Holy Door before pulling the two doors shut, a symbolic act marking the end of a Holy Year described as the rarest because it was opened by one pope and closed by another.
Vatican officials said the Jubilee had been opened by Pope Francis in December 2024, continued through Francis’ funeral and the conclave, and was then closed by Francis’ successor a year later. The AP reported that only once before, in 1700, had a Holy Year been opened by one pope and closed by another.
The closing ceremony followed what the AP described as a year of special audiences, Masses and meetings that shaped Leo’s first months in office. The report said the ceremony came as Leo, signaling that his pontificate could now begin “in earnest,” planned to convene the world’s cardinals at the Vatican for two days of meetings starting Wednesday to discuss governing the Catholic Church.
The AP reported the agenda would include the issue of the liturgy, suggesting Leo is moving toward divisions inside the church over how to celebrate the old Latin Mass.
In his homily Tuesday, Leo said the Jubilee year invited all Christians to reflect on Biblical teachings to welcome the stranger and resist “the flattery and seduction of those in power.” He said, “Around us, a distorted economy tries to profit from everything,” and asked, “Let us ask ourselves: has the Jubilee taught us to flee from this type of efficiency that reduces everything to a product and human beings to consumers?”
Leo continued, “After this year, will we be better able to recognize a pilgrim in the visitor, a seeker in the stranger, a neighbor in the foreigner, and fellow travelers in those who are different?” He echoed the theme again in a special Epiphany prayer delivered from the basilica loggia, while thousands of people sheltered under umbrellas and ponchos in a rain-soaked piazza below.
In that prayer, Leo recalled that Jubilees traditionally include appeals for peace and “a redistribution of the land and its resources” to those in need. He also said, “In the place of inequality, may there be fairness, and may the industry of war be replaced by the craft of peace.”
The Vatican views a Holy Year as a centuries-old tradition in which faithful make pilgrimages to Rome every 25 years to visit the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul and receive indulgences for forgiveness of sins if they pass through the Holy Door.
For Rome, the Jubilee is also tied to public works, with the AP reporting that some 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in public funds were used for long-delayed projects intended to modernize the city. On Monday, the Vatican claimed 33,475,369 pilgrims participated, but Archbishop Rino Fisichella acknowledged the figure was only a rough estimate and could include double counting. The AP said neither he nor Italian officials provided a breakdown between Holy Year pilgrims and Rome’s overall tourist figures for the same period.
Rome’s relationship with Jubilees dates to 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII inaugurated the first Holy Year, which the AP said helped mark Rome’s designation as the center of Christianity. The AP also noted that Jubilees have often been accompanied by large public works, including creation of the Sistine Chapel for the Jubilee of 1475 and a Vatican garage built for the 2000 Jubilee under St. John Paul II, as well as later projects such as the boulevard Via della Conciliazione and, for the 2025 Jubilee, a pedestrian piazza along the Tiber linked to Castel St. Angelo, with traffic redirected to an underground tunnel.
Leo has already announced that the next Jubilee will be held in 2033, to commemorate what Christians believe was the A.D. 33 death and resurrection of Christ.
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