A jubilee is a special year of remission of sins, debts and universal pardon. In the Book of Leviticus, a jubilee year is mentioned as occurring every 50th year (after 49 years, 7×7, as per Leviticus 25:8) during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.
In Western Christianity, the tradition dates to 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII convoked a holy year, following which ordinary jubilees have generally been celebrated every 25 or 50 years, with additional "extraordinary" jubilees declared depending on the need. Catholic jubilees, particularly in the Latin Church, generally involve a pilgrimage to a sacred site, normally the city of Rome.
The most recent ordinary holy year was the Jubilee Year of Hope, which commenced on 24 December 2024 and ended on 6 January 2026. The present extraordinary holy year is the Jubilee of St. Francis, which commenced on 10 January 2026 and will be concluded on 10 January 2027. It is planned to have an extraordinary jubilee in 2033 to commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Biblical origins
In Jewish tradition, the jubilee year was a time of joy, the year of remission or universal pardon. Leviticus 25:10 reads "Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee."
The same concept forms the fundamental idea of the Christian jubilee. The number 50 was specially associated in the early 13th century with the idea of remission. The translation of the body of Thomas Becket took place in the year 1220, 50 years after his martyrdom. The sermon on that occasion was preached by Cardinal Stephen Langton, who told his hearers that this coincidence was meant by Providence to recall "the mystical virtue of the number fifty, which, as every reader of the sacred page is aware, is the number of remission."
In the Chronicle of Alberic of Three Fountains, under the year 1208 (rather than 1200), is this brief entry: "It is said that this year was celebrated as the fiftieth year, or the year of jubilee and remission, in the Roman Court." In Ancient Rome, it was said the jubilee was the celebration coinciding with the centenaries since the founding of Rome; this pagan celebration was co-opted into the tradition of the jubilee.
Definition
In Roman Catholic tradition, a jubilee or Holy Year is a year of forgiveness of sins and also the punishment due to sin. It is a year of reconciliation between adversaries, of conversion and receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, "... and consequently of solidarity, hope, justice, commitment to serve God with joy and in peace with our brothers and sisters". A jubilee can be ordinary if it falls after the set period of years or extraordinary if it is proclaimed for some outstanding event.
History
First Christian jubilee
In the face of great suffering caused by wars and diseases such as the plague, thousands of pilgrims came to Rome at Christmas in 1299. Cardinal Giacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi, the contemporary and counsellor of Pope Boniface VIII, and author of a treatise on the first Christian jubilee, noted that the proclamation of the jubilee owed its origin to the statements of certain aged pilgrims who persuaded Boniface that great indulgences had been granted to all pilgrims in Rome about a hundred years before.
On 22 February 1300, Boniface published the bull "Antiquorum habet fida relatio", in which, appealing vaguely to the precedent of past ages, he declared "... the most full, pardon of all their sins", to those who fulfill certain conditions. These are, first, that being truly penitent they confess their sins, and secondly, that they visit the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome, at least once a day for a specified time—in the case of the inhabitants of the city for 30 days, in the case of strangers for 15 days.
The word "jubilee" does not occur in the bull. The pope speaks rather of a celebration which is to occur every 100 years, but writers both Roman and foreign described this year as annus jubileus, and the name "jubilee" (though others, such as the "holy year" or "the golden year", have been used, as well) has been applied to such celebrations ever since. Among those who are recorded as among the pilgrims of that first jubilee are Cimabue, Giotto, Charles, Count of Valois, the chronicler Giovanni Villani, and Dante Alighieri, who mentions it in the Divine Comedy in Canto XVIII of "Inferno" and canto XXXI of "Paradiso".
Jubilee of 1350
Boniface VIII had intended that the jubilee should be celebrated only once in 100 years. Before the middle of the 14th century, Bridget of Sweden and the poet Petrarch (among others) urged Pope Clement VI, then residing at Avignon, to change this. In 1343, Clement VI assented and issued the bull "Unigenitus", and set the time frame for every 50 years. In 1350, a jubilee was held, and although the pope did not return to Rome, Cardinal Gaetani Ceccano was dispatched to represent him. On this occasion, daily visits to the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran were enjoined, besides those to the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul outside the Walls.
Jubilees of 1390 and 1423
In virtue of an ordinance of Pope Urban VI, it was proposed to hold a jubilee every 33 years as representing the period of the sojourn of Christ upon earth and also the average span of human life. The next jubilee was held in 1390, and the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore was added to the list. The visits to these four churches has remained as one of the conditions for gaining the Roman jubilee indulgence.
In 1400 so many people came to Rome that Pope Boniface IX granted the indulgence again, though he had not decreed a jubilee year previously. One of the most severe occurrences of plague during the Second plague pandemic was exacerbated by the many pilgrims making their way to and from Rome; in the city itself 600–800 of the faithful died daily.
Another jubilee was proclaimed by Pope Martin V in 1423 (33 years after the last proclaimed jubilee in 1390), but Pope Nicholas V, in 1450, reverted to the quinquagesimal period, while in 1470 Pope Paul II decreed that the jubilee should be celebrated every 25 years, and this has been the normal rule ever since. Paul also permitted foreigners to visit some specified church in their own country, and contribute towards the expense of the Holy Wars, as a substitute for the pilgrimage to Rome.
15th century
The jubilees of 1450 and 1475 were attended by vast crowds of pilgrims, and that of 1450 was unfortunately made famous by a terrible accident in which nearly 200 people were trampled to death in a panic which occurred on the bridge of Sant' Angelo. Following this disaster, great pains were taken to widen the thoroughfares and to provide for the entertainment and comfort of the pilgrims by numerous charitable organizations, of which the Archconfraternity of the Holy Trinity, founded by Saint Philip Neri, was the most famous. In 1450, Rome was a largely rural area surrounded by the Aurelian Walls and inhabited by no more than 30,000 people engaged mainly in stock-rearing, in contrast with the economic centres of Florence, Venice, and Milan. Wolves frequented the Vatican Gardens, the population was centred on the Tiber near the Campus Martius, while round the churches of San Giovanni in Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore were separate villages. Pope Nicholas V used the wealth brought in by pilgrims in the jubilee year of 1450 to convert the medieval city into a Renaissance capital, to found the Vatican Library, and to permanently move the papal seat to the west bank of the Tiber away from the Roman masses who had evicted his predecessor: the Vatican Palace and St Peter's Basilica thus replaced St John Lateran as the main papal headquarters. The nearby Castel Sant'Angelo was rebuilt, along with new fortifications encircling what is now the Vatican City, which Pope Nicholas made his home. According to Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, 40,000 pilgrims arrived in Rome every day for the jubilee in 1450. With them came plague, and some members of the Curia died of the infection while the Pope himself fled Rome for Fabriano in the Apennine Mountains.
In 1500, Pope Alexander VI announced that the Holy Doors in the four major basilicas would be opened simultaneously, and that he himself would open the Holy Door of Saint Peter's. The celebrations around this were "founded on ancient rites and full of symbolic meaning" and the total number attending the initial jubilee events was, according to Johann Burchard, an estimated 200,000 people. This act definitively ushered in several customs.
16th to 17th centuries
The ninth jubilee was solemnly opened on 24 December 1524, by Pope Clement VII, at a time when symptoms of the great crises which would soon tear the Church apart were already present, with the Protestant Reformation. The 1550 Jubilee was proclaimed by Pope Paul III, but Pope Julius III actually opened it. In 1575, in the time of Pope Gregory XIII, as many as 300,000 people came to Rome from all over Europe. The following Holy Year was proclaimed by Pope Clement VIII in 1600.
In 1625, Pope Urban VIII opened the ceremonial doors for the jubilee year. However, the number of pilgrims was lower than expected due to the wars in northern Italy, so the Pope suspended the declaration of indulgences outside Rome in an attempt to lure the faithful to the city. He then went on to declare a universal or extraordinary jubilee in 1628 to pray for peace. This was repeated the next year in 1629, bringing material benefits to the city. Finally, Innocent X oversaw the last of his jubilees in 1650. Pope Clement X presided over that of 1675 and Pope Clement XI over that of 1700.
18th to 19th centuries
Clement XI is remembered especially for establishing one of Rome's most renowned charitable institutions, the hospice of San Michele a Ripa. Gradually, other similar institutions were opened to offer shelter and assistance to pilgrims, as in 1725, the Holy Year called by Pope Benedict XIII. A famous preacher during the Jubilee of 1750, proclaimed by Pope Benedict XIV, was Leonard of Port Maurice, who set up 14 Stations of the Cross inside the ruins of the Colosseum. Benedict used the occasion of the Jubilee to celebrate the absolution and reconciliation of a number of former freemasons.
Pope Clement XIV announced the Jubilee of 1775, but died three months before Christmas and the Holy Door was opened by the new pope, Pius VI.
The difficulties faced by the Church during the hegemonic rule of Napoleon prevented Pope Pius VII from proclaiming the Jubilee of 1800, but more than a half a million pilgrims made the journey to Rome for the Jubilee of 1825. Pope Pius VIII declared a further two-week jubilee in 1829, celebrated in Rome from 28 June to 12 July, and over two locally determined weeks outside Rome. Pope Gregory XVI instituted a three-week jubilee over the period from 23 December 1832 to 13 January 1833 in celebration of the start of his pontificate.
The Holy Year could not be celebrated in 1850 because of the unsettled situation in the Roman Republic and the temporary exile of Pope Pius IX. However, he was able to announce a jubilee for 1875, but it was celebrated without any external solemnity, with only the clergy present for the inauguration. The holy doors were not opened, and the pilgrims who came were generally in Rome to do homage to the pope, who had not accepted the Italian annexation of Rome by the troops of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, rather than to obtain an indulgence.
The Jubilee of 1900, though shorn of much of its splendor by the self-confinement of the pope within the limits of the Vatican, was, nevertheless, carried out by Pope Leo XIII with all possible solemnity.
20th-century jubilees
In the 20th century, jubilees were held in 1925, 1933 (in commemoration of the 1900th anniversary of the traditional year of Jesus's death and resurrection), 1950, 1965 (post-Council jubilee), 1975, 1983 (for the Holy Year of the Redemption: the 1950th anniversary of Jesus's death and resurrection) and 2000.
Pope Pius XII used the occasion of the 1950 Jubilee to declare a new pontifical anthem for the Vatican City. With the encyclical Fulgens corona, he declared the first Marian year or "Little Holy Year" for 1954. Pope John Paul II proclaimed a Marian year in 1987, again four years after the 1983 Jubilee.
"Great Jubilee" of 2000
Pope John Paul II announced a Great Jubilee for the year 2000 with his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Approaches) of 10 November 1994. In this writing, he called for a three-year preparation period leading up to the opening of the Great Jubilee on 24 December 1999. The first year, 1997, was to be dedicated to meditation on Jesus, the second to the Holy Spirit, and the third to God the Father. This Jubilee was especially marked by a simplification of the rites and the requirements for achieving the indulgence, as well as a huge effort to involve other Christians in the celebration.