Pope Francis solemnly proclaims 2025 jubilee year, issues bull ‘Hope Does Not Disappoint’

May 10, 2024

Pope Francis solemnly proclaimed the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025 at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica on the evening of May 9, the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord (video, booklet).

During the ceremony, passages of Spes Non Confundit (Hope Does Not Disappoint), the bull of indiction of the jubilee year, were read aloud before the celebration of Vespers.

In the bull—dated May 9 and released the same day—the Pope began:

SPES NON CONFUNDIT. “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5). In the spirit of hope, the Apostle Paul addressed these words of encouragement to the Christian community of Rome. Hope is also the central message of the coming Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every 25 years. My thoughts turn to all those pilgrims of hope who will travel to Rome in order to experience the Holy Year and to all those others who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches. For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the “door” (cf. Jn 10:7.9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as “our hope” (1 Tim 1:1).

The bull has five sections:

• “A word of hope” (nos. 2-4), a reflection on the teaching of St. Paul on hope and on St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of Creatures
• “A journey of hope” (nos. 5-8), in which the Pope discussed the value of pilgrimages and decreed the dates of the jubilee’s beginning and conclusion
• “Signs of hope” (nos. 7-15), including the desire for peace and the “desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters” amid “an alarming decline in the birthrate.” In this context, the Pontiff called on the faithful “to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind,” including prisoners, the sick, migrants, the young, the elderly, and the poor.
• “Appeals for hope” (nos. 16-18), including assistance for the hungry, debt forgiveness for poor nations, and a common date for the celebration of Easter
• “Anchored in hope” (nos. 19-25), in which the Pope discussed everlasting life, Christ’s death and Resurrection, the reality of death, the witness of the martyrs, God’s judgment, indulgences and the Sacrament of Penance, and the Mother of God, hope’s “supreme witness”

The Pope concluded:

The coming Jubilee will thus be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God. May it help us to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation. May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope, a harbinger of new heavens and a new earth (cf. 2 Pet 3:13), where men and women will dwell in justice and harmony, in joyful expectation of the fulfilment of the Lord’s promises.

Let us even now be drawn to this hope! Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: “Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!” (Ps 27:14). May the power of hope fill our days, as we await with confidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory, now and forever.

The Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025 will begin on December 24, 2024, with the opening of the holy door in St. Peter’s Basilica, and will conclude on January 6, 2026, with the closing of the holy door there. In the world’s dioceses, the jubilee year will begin with solemn Masses in cathedrals and co-cathedrals on December 29, 2024, and conclude on December 28, 2025.

The 2025 jubilee year, whose theme is “pilgrims of hope,” is styled ordinary because it has been customary since 1300 for popes to proclaim a jubilee at regular intervals—and since 1475, every 25 years. The last extraordinary jubilee was the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy (2015-16).

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