A chair assigned for Pope Francis is placed in front of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 9, 2024. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Two days after opening the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica to inaugurate the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis will travel to a Rome prison to open a Holy Door as a "tangible sign of the message of hope" for people in prisons around the world, the Vatican announced.
The pope will go Dec. 26 to Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of Rome, "a symbol of all the prisons dispersed throughout the world," to deliver a message of hope to prisoners, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization's section for new evangelization and the chief organizer of the Holy Year 2025, announced at a news conference Oct. 28.
Pope Francis will open the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica Dec. 24. He will then open the Holy Doors at the major basilicas of St. John Lateran Dec. 29, St. Mary Major Jan. 1 and St. Paul Outside the Walls Jan. 5.
In his "bull of indiction," the document formally proclaiming the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis wrote that during the Holy Year he will have close to his heart "prisoners who, deprived of their freedom, feel daily the harshness of detention and its restrictions, lack of affection and, in more than a few cases, lack of respect for their persons."
Read the entire story at https://www.usccb.org/news/2024/pope-open-holy-door-rome-prison-beginning-jubilee-2025