KABALE DIOCESE BEGINS PREPARATIONS FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE JUBILEE YEAR 2025

The Pastoral Office Kabale Diocese has embarked on the preparations for the celebration of Jubilee Year 2025. The Year 2025 was declared a Jubilee Year by Pope Francis on Ascension Day, May 9, 2024 with a papal bull, titled “Spes non Confundit” meaning “Hope Does Not Disappoint” as read in the letter of St. Paul to Romans 5:5 and the theme for Jubilee Year 2025 will be “Pilgrims of Hope.” A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent or charter issued by a pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden seal (bulla) traditionally appended to authenticate it.

Fr. Fidel Ndagijimana, Pastoral Coordinator Kabale Diocese while chairing the Central Organizing Committee meeting yesterday, September 30, 2024 at Rushoroza Pastoral Centre told members that Pope Francis underscores the importance of faith in the Christian life, which hope has recently been affected or lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ebola epidemic, climate crisis, domestic violence, economic hardships, among others. He said that they jubilee will focus on reconciliation and forgiveness hence stressing God’s mercy and love.

The Dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples spells out 7 characteristics of a jubilee which brings out what is expected of the Christians in celebration of the Jubilee. These include:

1. Making a pilgrimage: in the Jubilee Year, Christians are encouraged to make a pilgrimage to the holy places both locally and internationally with a purpose of prayer and renewal.

2. Holy Door: Christians are invited to make pilgrimage to Rome and walk through the Jubilee Doors of the 4 Basilicas (St. Peter’s Basilica, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and ). On the Diocesan level, Christians are encouraged to make pilgrimage to holy sites or pass through the Door of the Cathedral as will be guided Diocesan Ordinary.

3. Reconciliation: The Sacrament of Penance is at the centre of the Jubilee Year. Through dialogue, Christians need to critically examine what has torn them apart leading to wars and separation.

4. Prayer: Christians are invited to promote the importance of of individual and communal prayers as a means to open to God’s presence and his offer of love.

5. Liturgy: In the Jubilee Year, it’s good to stress the importance of Mass in the life of a Christian, and how best to participate in it.

6. Profession of faith (Creed): The study of the Creed is a good act of preparation to celebrate the Jubilee Year.

7. Indulgences: The purpose of indulgences in the Catholic Church is to provide remission of the punishment for sins.

Fr. Fidel Ndagijimana further explained that Kabale Diocese in its preparation to celebrate the Jubilee Year 2025 will undertake different activities that will make the Christians make an active participation. This includes visiting major prisons in the districts covered by Kabale Diocese, visiting major private and government health facilities, making a visit to the Deanery Churches (Rushoroza, Rubanda, Mutolere, Makiro, Nyakibale, Kitanga and Bukinda) whose doors the Bishop will officially open so that Christians go through them, conducting workshops on the Jubilee by participating in reciting the Jubilee Prayers and singing the Jubilee Song, making pilgrimage both locally and internationally (Deanery Churches, Namugongo, Kibeho and Rome). There will be programs conducted about prayer, sacraments, hope and reconciliation, indulgences and all this will be crowned opening of holy Door in the Diocese (which program will be communicated with time).

Now that we have deliberated upon these ideas of how best we can celebrate the Jubilee Year, start disseminating the information about Jubilee Year 2025. Talk about it at every opportunity you have with the people and let them participate actively- Fr. Fidel Ndagijimana, Pastoral Coordinator Kabale Diocese.

In his remarks, Msgr. John Vianney Sunday, Vicar General Kabale Diocese thanked the Pastoral Coordinator for the elaborate presentation about the Jubilee Year to the members of the Central Organizing Committee. This committee is comprised of Diocesan heads of departments, Deans, Deanery Laity Council Chairpersons, deanery women Chairpersons, Deanery youths chairpersons among others. Msgr. John Vianney Sunday said that the Jubilee entails deepening of people’s faith and he encouraged all Christians to actively participate so that the Jubilee becomes meaningful in their lives. He also urged members of the organizing committee to be ambassadors of the events of the Jubilee.

Jubilee years have a historical and Biblical precedent, which can be found in the Book of Leviticus. In the Old Testament, part of the celebration included the freeing of slaves and prisoners, as well as the forgiveness of debts as manifestations of God’s mercy.

And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.  That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field. In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property (Leviticus 25:10-13).

With the Bull Antiquorum habet, of 22 February 1300, Boniface VIII proclaimed 1300 as a Jubilee year, decreeing that instead of focusing on freeing slaves, the Christian version offered liberation from sins, and from the punishment due to sin that must be faced in Purgatory, Romans who would visit the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul 30 times within the year would be granted a plenary indulgence, while pilgrims arriving from outside Rome would only need 15 visits.

The Jubilee Year in the whole Catholic Church will begin with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve 2024 by Pope Francis and will officially come to an end with the closing of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica on January 6, 2026, on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord.