Vatican City:

Pope Francis will mark Christmas Eve on Tuesday with a special ceremony launching Jubilee 2025, a year of Catholic celebrations set to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome.

The 88-year-old, who has been suffering from a cold in recent days, will at 7:00 pm (1800 GMT) open the “Holy Door” of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, in front of 30,000 people and a live TV audience around the world.

Over the next 12 months, pilgrims will pass through the large and imposing bronze door, which is normally closed, by tradition benefiting from a “plenary indulgence”, a type of forgiveness for their sins.

The Argentine pontiff will then preside over the Christmas Eve mass in St Peter’s, before delivering his traditional Christmas Day blessing, Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world), at midday on Wednesday.

Ahead of a busy week, the pontiff missed his usual Angelus prayer in St Peter’s Square on Sunday because of a cold, instead delivering it online from his home in the Vatican.

On Christmas Day, Francis is expected to repeat his calls for peace in a world riven by conflict, particularly in the Middle East.

He drew an angry response from Israel at the weekend for condemning the “cruelty” of Israel’s strikes in Gaza that killed children.

Some 700 security officers are being deployed around the Vatican and Rome for the Jubilee celebrations, with measures further tightened following Friday’s car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Germany.

‘Little miracle’

Organised by the Church every 25 years, the Jubilee is intended as a period of reflection and penance for Catholics, and is marked by a long list of cultural and religious events, from masses to exhibitions, conferences and concerts.

Much of Rome has been given a facelift in preparation, with monuments such as the Trevi Fountain and the Ponte Sant’Angelo cleaned up and roads redesigned to improve the flow of traffic.

Many residents have questioned how the Eternal City — where key sites are already overcrowded and public transport is unreliable — will cope with millions more visitors next year.

Key Jubilee projects were only finished in the last few days after months of works that turned much of the city into a building site.

Inaugurating a new road tunnel at Piazza Pia next to the Vatican on Monday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said it had taken a “little civil miracle” to get the project finished in time.

Over the course of the next few days, Holy Doors will be opened in Rome’s three major basilicas and in Catholic churches around the world.

On Thursday, Pope Francis will open a Holy Door at Rebibbia prison in Rome and preside over a mass in a show of support for the inmates.

LGBTQ faithful

While primarily aimed at the world’s almost 1.4 billion Catholics, the Jubilee aims to also reach a wider audience.

And traditions have evolved since the first such event back in 1300, launched by Pope Boniface VIII.

This year, the Vatican has provided pilgrims with online registration and multilingual phone apps to navigate events.

Jubilee 2025 also has a mascot named Luce (meaning Light in Latin) inspired by Japanese anime cartoons — a choice that drew some criticism from traditionalists, but which is intended to target the younger generation.

With the motto “Pilgrims of Hope”, the event will see groups from around the world come to Rome throughout 2025, from sports and business figures to migrants, artists and young people.

Among the groups registered on the official site is Italian LGBTQ group La Tenda di Gionata, reflecting the pope’s call for the Church to be open to all.

As well as the regular Jubilees every 25 years, the Church has organised extraordinary Jubilees, the most recent in 2016. The next is in 2033 to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Pope Francis presides over the Easter vigil celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, on March 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Pope Francis presided over the Vatican’s somber Easter Vigil service on Saturday night, delivering a 10-minute homily and baptizing eight people, a day after suddenly skipping the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum as a health precaution.

The Pope entered the darkened, silent St. Peter’s Basilica in his wheelchair, took his place in a chair and offered an opening prayer. Sounding somewhat congested and out of breath, he blessed an elaborately decorated Easter candle, the flame of which was then shared with other candles until the whole basilica twinkled.

Over an hour later, he delivered a 10-minute homily in a strong voice, clearing his throat occasionally.

The evening service, one of the most solemn and important moments in the Catholic liturgical calendar, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus. The Vatican had said the Pope skipped the Good Friday procession to ensure his participation in both the vigil service Saturday night, which usually lasts about two hours, and Easter Sunday Mass a few hours later.

The 87-year-old Pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling respiratory problems all winter that have made it difficult for him to speak at length. He and the Vatican have said he has had bronchitis, a cold or the flu.

He has canceled some audiences and often asked an aide to read aloud some of his speeches. But the alarm was raised when he ditched his Palm Sunday homily altogether last week at the last minute and then decided suddenly Friday to stay home rather than preside over the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion.

The Vatican said in a brief explanation that the decision was made to “conserve his health.”

The decision appeared to have paid off Saturday night, as the Pope was able to recite the prayers of the lengthy vigil service, and perform the sacrament of baptism for the eight adults. The baptism is a traditional feature of the Vatican’s Easter Vigil service.

In his homily the Pope referred to the stone that the faithful believe was removed from Christ’s tomb after his death. He urged Catholics to remove the stones in their lives that “block the door of our hearts, stifling life, extinguishing hope, imprisoning us in the tomb of our fears and regrets.”

“Let us lift our eyes to him and ask that the power of his resurrection may roll away the heavy stones that weigh down our souls,” he said.

Holy Week is trying for a pope under any circumstance, given four days of liturgies, rites, fasting and prayer. But that is especially true for the Pope, who cancelled a trip to Dubai late last year, with just days to go, on doctor’s orders because of his respiratory problems.

In addition to his respiratory problems, he had a chunk of his large intestine removed in 2021 and was hospitalised twice last year, including once to remove intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries to address diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall. He has been using a wheelchair or cane for nearly two years because of bad knee ligaments.

In his recently published memoirs, “Life: My Story Through History,” the Pope said he isn’t suffering from any health problems that would require him to resign and that he still has “many projects to bring to fruition.”

Vatican city:

Pope Francis skipped readings at his Wednesday weekly audience, delegating the task to an aide and telling the faithful he was still not well.

The 87-year-old pontiff, who has had a number of health issues recently, had cancelled appointments on Saturday and on Monday due to what the Vatican called a mild flu.

On Sunday, however, he addressed crowds in St Peter’s Square as normal, to deliver his Angelus message.

“Dear brothers and sisters, I still have a bit of a cold”, Francis said, announcing that someone else would read his catechesis on envy and vainglory, two of the seven deadly sins.

In December, the pope was forced to cancel a planned trip to a COP28 climate meeting in Dubai because of the effects of influenza and lung inflammation.

In January, he was unable to complete a speech owing to “a touch of bronchitis”. Later in the month he said he was doing better despite “some aches and pains”.

As a young man in his native Argentina, Francis had part of a lung removed.

The pope also has difficulty walking, and regularly uses a wheelchair or a cane. On Wednesday, he arrived at his indoor audience in a wheelchair.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)