“This the door of God… open the doors of justice.”
With those words, Pope Francis on the 8th of December 2015 pushed open the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica and officially inaugurated the “Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy,” a special year called by the pope so that the faithful everywhere can focus on the mercy of God and extend this mercy to others.
Amid tight security, an estimated 50,000 pilgrims attended the mass that preceded the ceremony, including the Italian president and prime minister. During his homily, Francis called for a church that puts mercy before judgment.
“How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we affirm that sins are punished by his judgment before putting first that they are forgiven by his mercy,” he said. “Let us abandon fear and dread… instead, let us live the joy of encounter with the grace that transforms us all.”
After the mass, Francis walked to the atrium of the basilica. There, he greeted is predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, with a warm embrace. Francis then pushed the majestic bronze door wide open, prayed silently for a few minutes on the threshold, and walked through. He was followed by a frail Benedict, who was holding a cane. A procession of cardinals, bishops and laity followed. Normally, pilgrims pass through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s and other designated Roman basilicas to receive indulgence. But for the first time ever, Francis has called on dioceses and shrines around the world to throw open their Holy Doors, so that pilgrims everywhere may be forgiven their sins.
The pope also said prisoners may obtain indulgence in the chapels of their prisons. In addition, he has made it easier for women who have had abortions to obtain forgiveness by decreeing that all priests have the authority to absolve them, a faculty usually reserved for bishops and in the case of our diocese extended to the deans. But the Pope has given the faculty to all priests. The year of Mercy will be concluded on the solemnity of Christ the king, November 2016. At the end of the liturgy a deacon chanted “be merciful as your father is merciful”.