Speaking as part of a panel alongside Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri at the annual Italian festival of Rimini, Italian archbishop Rino Fisichella said, “Without hope, we cannot grasp the essence of life; hope belongs to the essence of Christian life, because, together with faith and charity, it represents the style of the believer.”
The pro-prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization, which is organizing the upcoming 2025 Jubilee of Hope, Fisichella is in charge of the jubilee preparations.
Fisichella focused on two aspects of the jubilee: hope and forgiveness, which were central themes throughout Pope Francis’s Bull of Indiction, Spes non confundit, or “Hope does not disappoint.”
Published in May, the bull set the tone for the jubilee and included appeals from Pope Francis for things he said would help sow greater hope in the world, including amnesty for prisoners and debt forgiveness for developing nations.
He also made several appeals to show hope to populations he said are in the greatest need of it and indicated that ecumenism will be a major theme during the upcoming jubilee year.
Fisichella said that what makes the 2025 jubilee year unique are two different aspects of it, the first of which is hope itself.
The second aspect is “the ability to give, to offer, to participate, to put into practice the concrete signs of hope,” he said, saying to do this requires “a personal journey of the entire church, of humanity, this is why we are pilgrims.”
This journey, he said, is especially necessary in “a period like this, in which there is so much daily violence.”
He also spoke of the jubilee indulgence and alluded to the church’s checkered past with indulgences, at one point selling them in an act that aided in Martin Luthar’s Protestant Revolution.
“To profit from the indulgence is to cancel it,” he said, saying, “I have never used this verb, and I would like it never to be used. There is nothing to profit because there is nothing to buy.”
An indulgence, Fisichella said, is a gift of God and “the jubilee is the announcement of a great forgiveness that is given to us.”
Indulgences in the Catholic Church are the full remission of the temporal consequences of a person’s sins after they have been absolved, which is a special feature of jubilee years. For the 2025 jubilee, the Vatican has offered plenary indulgences broadly to all those who make pilgrimages as part of the holy year.
Fisichella noted that in the jubilee Bull of Indiction, the pope repeatedly insists that forgiveness, while unable to change the past, can help in building a better future, which he said is essential to moving forward.
“In a climate of resentment, violence, and revenge, the jubilee comes to remind us of the great gift of God,” he said.
Forgiveness, also through the jubilee indulgence, he said, “is grace, it is not a conquest. Profiting does not mean anything.”
“The experience of God’s forgiveness happens through a journey: the pilgrimage, the passage through the Holy Door, the profession of faith, works of charity. The announcement is that God comes to meet you,” he said.
Pointing to the recently concluded Paris Olympics, Fisichella said the work and effort poured into organizing the jubilee aren’t seen and will soon be forgotten, but the fruits of it, which are the most important aspect, will be remembered.
“If I may use the analogy, the work passes…the important thing is that you get to live the experience by winning 40 medals,” he said.
Fisichella voiced his hope that the church during the jubilee “can be ever more convinced of the beauty and of the responsibility of bringing the Gospel to all, because the Jubilee is a peculiar expression of evangelization.”
Speaking to the panel via video connection, Gualtieri called the 2025 jubilee “a challenge that will make your wrists tremble,” but also a spiritual opportunity and an opportunity to make Rome more “beautiful, efficient and inclusive.”
He said the jubilee is an occasion to put into practice “the values indicated by the pope: solidarity, inclusion, the care of creation, the duty to welcome everyone as best as possible.”
Some 35 million pilgrims are expected to travel to Rome for the jubilee, amounting to more than 10,000 per day, he said, insisting that Rome will be ready for the inauguration of the jubilee in December, despite many ongoing construction projects that have yet to be completed.