Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D. Bishop | Archdiocese of Louisville

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY— While bishops worldwide are asked to designate their cathedrals or other significant churches as special places of pilgrimage and prayer for the Holy Year 2025, the Vatican is not requesting them to dedicate and open a “Holy Door” at those churches.

The Dicastery for Evangelization, coordinating the Jubilee celebration, issued a note on August 1 praising “the pastoral and devotional motivations” of bishops who wanted to designate a local Holy Door but stated that the only holy doors will be at the basilicas of St. Peter at the Vatican, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome and, possibly, at a prison.

In “Spes Non Confundit” (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”), the papal bull officially proclaiming the Holy Year, Pope Francis wrote that “in order to offer prisoners a concrete sign of closeness, I would myself like to open a Holy Door in a prison, as a sign inviting prisoners to look to the future with hope and a renewed sense of confidence.”

In Catholic tradition, the Holy Door represents the passage to salvation — the path to new and eternal life opened by Jesus. The tradition dates back over 600 years. Pope Martin V first opened the Holy Door in the Basilica of St. John Lateran — Rome's cathedral — for a jubilee in 1423. Later, Pope Alexander VI had Holy Doors opened at Rome's four main basilicas for the Holy Year of 1500.

The doors are formally closed at each Holy Year's end and then bricked up by masons. Starting in the 16th century, opening St. Peter’s Basilica's door included reciting Psalms verses and striking its wall covering with a silver hammer three times.

Designating a Holy Door in every diocese and many shrines worldwide was an innovation by Pope Francis for celebrating the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015-2016.

In his bull proclaiming the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis asked bishops globally to open Holy Doors so their dioceses would be “directly involved in living out this Holy Year as an extraordinary moment of grace and spiritual renewal,” ensuring it would be “celebrated both in Rome and in Particular Churches as a visible sign of the Church’s universal communion.”

On August 1, the Dicastery for Evangelization noted that Pope Francis did not make such requests for bishops for 2025's Holy Year. Instead, he asked bishops to celebrate its solemn opening on Sunday, December 29. He suggested that “a pilgrimage from a church chosen for ‘collectio’ proceeding to the cathedral can symbolize hope's journey illuminated by God's word uniting all faithful.”

The Apostolic Penitentiary issued a document in May detailing how Catholics can receive traditional Holy Year indulgences—remissions of temporal punishment due for sins—stating bishops should designate their cathedral or another sacred place as local sites for pilgrims.

“Bishops will take into account faithful needs and reinforce pilgrimage symbolism manifesting conversion and reconciliation needs,” said Vatican court.

Pope Francis will open St. Peter’s Basilica's Holy Door on December 24 and St. John Lateran’s on December 29; St. Mary Major’s will open January 1; St. Paul Outside-the-Walls' will open January 5.

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