Jubilee 2025: Vatican remembers the rules for the opening of the Holy Doors

Through a note released this August 1, the Dicastery for Evangelization has clarified the regulations in relation to the opening of the Holy Doors for the next Jubilee and reiterates that only the Pontifical Basilicas can benefit from this jubilee tradition.

At the beginning of the note, the Vatican highlights that the question has recently been raised “whether it would be possible to foresee the configuration and opening of the Holy Door in the Cathedral Churches, in the International and National Shrines, as well as in other places of worship particularly significant.”

In this regard, “respecting the most sensitive consideration of the pastoral and devotional motivations that may have suggested such a laudable aspiration,” the Vatican considers it necessary to remember “the precise indications established by the Holy Father in the Open Hope does not disappoint”, published last May.

In this way, the Vatican Dicastery recalls that in the text with which Pope Francis called the next Jubilee of Hope, the Holy Door is designated as “St. Peter’s Basilica and the other three Pontifical Basilicas; Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major and Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

Likewise, they highlight “the desire expressed by the Holy Father to personally open a Holy Door in a prison to offer prisoners a concrete sign of closeness.”

At the end of the note published this Thursday, the Vatican highlights that “the peculiar and identifying sign of the Jubilee Year, as transmitted from the first Jubilee of the year 1300, is the indulgence that ‘wants to express the fullness of God’s forgiveness that does not knows limits’, through the sacrament of Penance and the signs of charity and hope.”

“Therefore, to fully live this moment of grace, we are urged to refer to the particular places and the various modalities” indicated by the Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary from May 13, 2024.

The meaning of the Holy Doors during the Jubilee Year

Each of the four papal basilicas of Rome it has a holy door, which is usually sealed from the inside so that it cannot be opened. The holy doors are only opened during the Jubilee year so that pilgrims can enter through them and gain the plenary indulgence linked to this time of grace.

The rite of opening the Holy Door is intended to symbolically illustrate that the faithful of the Catholic Church are offered an “extraordinary path” to salvation during the time of the Jubilee.

After the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica, the doors of the other three Roman basilicas are opened: St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major.

During the Holy Year of Mercy, Pope Francis also gave diocesan bishops permission to designate specific Holy Doors in their dioceses, something that has not happened on this occasion.