St. Peter’s Holy Door sees more than half million pilgrims in two weeks

VATICAN CITY — More than half a million pilgrims crossed the threshold of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the first two weeks after Pope Francis opened it.

From Dec. 24, when the pope inaugurated the Holy Year, to Jan. 7, the Vatican said, 545,532 people from around the world have made the journey along the lengthy boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square and crossed through the basilica’s Holy Door.

“This is a very significant beginning,” Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the chief Vatican organizer of the Jubilee Year, said in a statement. “The groups crowding Via della Conciliazione are giving an important testimony, and this is also a sign of the great perception of safety and security that pilgrims experience in the city of Rome and around the four papal basilicas.”

A tunnel diverting vehicle traffic underground at the beginning of Via Della Conciliazione — the street leading to the Vatican — was completed just before the start of the Holy Year. A pathway extending from the new pedestrian square at the start of the street to the Holy Door also was set up exclusively for pilgrims walking individually or in groups to St. Peter’s Basilica.

Archbishop Fisichella acknowledged, however, that there were some “difficulties” in managing the flow of pilgrims and tourists through St. Peter’s Basilica, a problem that would be studied.

The city of Rome has estimated that more than 30 million people will travel to the city during the Jubilee.

Based on the number of pilgrims that crossed the Holy Door in the first days of the Holy Year, “a steady increase in pilgrim turnout is expected,” the Vatican said in its statement, noting also the many children, youth, adults and elderly who participated in Jubilee celebrations at the diocesan level Dec. 29.

The Vatican said that the “great desire to participate in the Jubilee was also visible in the thousands of people who filled the four papal basilicas on the days celebrating the opening of the Holy Doors, often filling the squares in front of them.”

While Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica and another at a Rome prison complex, he did not attend the opening of the holy doors at the other three papal basilicas in Rome: St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran and St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The first major event of the Holy Year is the Jubilee of the World of Communications Jan. 24-26, which will bring to Rome “thousands of journalists, experts and communications workers from all over the world,” the Vatican said.

Pope opens Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, launching ‘Jubilee of Hope’

By Cindy Wooden | Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — In the quiet of Christmas Eve, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, launching what he called a “Jubilee of Hope.”

As the doors opened, the bells of the basilica began to peal.

After the reading of a brief passage from the Gospel of John in which Jesus describes Himself as “the door,” Pope Francis briefly left the atrium of the basilica.

Three minutes later, the pope returned. He was pushed in his wheelchair up the ramp to the Holy Door. In silence, he raised himself from the chair to knock five times, and aides inside slowly opened the door, which had been framed in a garland of green pine branches, decorated with red roses and gold pinecones.

Opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica has been a fixture of the Catholic Church’s celebration of jubilee years since the Holy Year 1450, the Vatican said.

Pope Francis chose “Pilgrims of Hope” as the theme for the Holy Year 2025, which began Dec. 24 and will run through Jan. 6, 2026.

The rite of opening the decorated bronze door began inside the basilica with the reading in different languages of biblical passages prophesying the birth of the savior “who brings His kingdom of peace into our world,” as the lector explained.

Then, to emphasize how the birth of Jesus “proclaims the dawn of hope in our world,” the Gospel of St. Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus was proclaimed.

Introduced with a blare of trumpets, the choir sang, “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.”

“The steps we now take are the steps of the whole Church, a pilgrim in the world and a witness of peace,” the pope told the assembled cardinals, bishops, ecumenical guests and lay faithful in the atrium of the basilica.

“Holding fast to Christ, the rock of our salvation, enlightened by His word and renewed by His grace,” the pope continued, “may we cross the threshold of this holy temple and so enter into a season of mercy and forgiveness in which every man and woman may encounter and embrace the path of hope, which does not disappoint.”

Echoing the biblical jubilee themes of reconciliation and forgiveness, Pope Francis prayed that the Holy Spirit would soften hardened hearts so that “enemies may speak to each other again, adversaries may join hands and people seek to meet together.”

“Grant that the Church may bear faithful witness to your love and may shine forth as a vital sign of the blessed hope of your kingdom,” he prayed.