Holy Year of Redemption
Church Eyes 2033 as Greatest of All Jubilees
Seven years away, the 2,000th anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection is already reshaping Catholic life — from Denver novenas to papal pilgrimages — as the Church prepares for what Pope Leo XIV calls a “return to Jerusalem.”
ROME — With the ink barely dry on the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, the Roman Catholic Church is already turning its gaze toward a milestone unlike any other in its modern history: the year 2033, when Christians worldwide will mark the 2,000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Pope Leo XIV set the tone during a November 2025 visit to Istanbul, where he gathered with leaders from the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran traditions to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. In a move that surprised many observers, the pontiff used the ecumenical occasion to formally invite all Christians — Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant alike — to begin the spiritual journey toward what he called the “Jubilee of the Redemption” in 2033, with a pilgrimage destination that carries enormous symbolic weight: Jerusalem.
The Holy Father concluded his address by inviting listeners “to travel together on the spiritual journey that le
ads to the Jubilee of the Redemption in 2033, with the prospect of a return to Jerusalem,” the Holy See Press Office reported. He emphasized his hope to celebrate specifically at the Cenacle — the Upper Room where the Last Supper was held and where the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost.
The announcement moved quickly through Catholic communities worldwide. By March 2025, the Archdiocese of Denver had launched a nine-year novena — a structured prayer campaign running one year for each year leading to 2033 — centered on the image of the Virgin Mary at the Foot of the Cross. Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila commissioned local sacred artist Elizabeth Zelasko to paint the icon that anchors the devotion.
“The journey is not finished. 2025 was only a significant step, preparing the way for the great anniversary of our Redemption in 2033.”
— Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Vatican Jubilee Coordinator
A global movement called “Global 2033,” a consortium of Catholic organizations, dioceses and lay movements, has framed the jubilee around the Church’s unfinished missionary mandate. The organization gathered more than 200 leaders in Fiuggi, Italy, in 2025 to coordinate a “decade of evangelization” intended to bring the Gospel to every person on earth by the year 2033.
What Is a Jubilee? Roots in the Bible
To understand why 2033 carries such weight, one must begin not in medieval Rome but in the arid hills of ancient Canaan, in a passage from the Book of Leviticus that has shaped three millennia of religious law and imagination.
“You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month — on the Day of Atonement — you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.”
— Leviticus 25:8–10 (NRSV)
The Hebrew word underlying “jubilee” is yovel — the ram’s horn blown to announce the sacred year. During this fiftieth year, the Mosaic law mandated the release of Hebrew slaves, the cancellation of debts, and the return of land sold or seized back to its original family. The earth itself was to lie fallow. The Jubilee was, at its core, a radical act of social and economic restoration ordered by God to prevent the permanent accumulation of wealth and the permanent degradation of the poor.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
— Luke 4:18–19 (Jesus reading from Isaiah 61:1–2 in the synagogue at Nazareth)
Christian scholars have long read that passage — Jesus’ first public proclamation in the Gospel of Luke — as a declaration that the long-awaited ultimate Jubilee had arrived in his own person. The “year of the Lord’s favor” was understood not merely as an economic reset but as the inauguration of God’s kingdom, in which all debts — including the debt of sin — would be forgiven. The Jubilee of the Old Testament thus finds its fulfillment in Christ himself.
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.”
— John 6:40
The Book of Isaiah also anticipates the jubilee’s themes of liberation and renewal. In Isaiah 61, the prophet envisions an anointed servant of the Lord who will “bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” The New Testament identifies this servant with Jesus, making the Jubilee inseparable from the mystery of Redemption.
How the Church Defines the Jubilee
The Catholic Church’s authoritative teaching on the Jubilee has been developed across centuries by popes, councils and apostolic letters. The key magisterial documents include:
Bull Antiquorum habet fida relatio (1300)
Pope Boniface VIII’s founding document established the first Christian Jubilee and linked the granting of plenary indulgences to pilgrimage and sacramental confession. It defined the jubilee as a year of “remission and indulgence of all sins,” available to those who travel to Rome, visit the basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul, and make a full, contrite confession.
Bull Unigenitus Dei Filius (1343)
Pope Clement VI’s theological foundation for indulgences affirmed the Church’s authority to draw upon the “treasury of merit” — the superabundant merits of Christ and the saints — to grant relief from temporal punishment for sin. This document remains foundational to all subsequent jubilee theology.
Apostolic Constitution Exercetur in dies (1470)
Pope Paul II’s decree formally set the jubilee cycle at 25 years — a length still in use today. This practical measure balanced the biblical resonance of the 50-year cycle with the pastoral need to offer the jubilee graces to more generations of the faithful.
Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (1994)
Pope St. John Paul II’s sweeping theological preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000 described the jubilee as “a year of the Lord’s favor” that must translate into “a commitment to justice and peace in our world.” John Paul called for a jubilee of the poor, of ecology, and of the Church’s own conversion — including a formal request for forgiveness for historical sins.
Bull Incarnationis Mysterium (1998)
John Paul II’s proclamation of the Great Jubilee of 2000 called it “a unique and singular event” in Church history and connected the grace of indulgences to genuine moral conversion. It also articulated the social dimension of the jubilee, insisting that reconciliation with God must be accompanied by reconciliation with one’s neighbor.
“The Church lives by the redemption. Christ’s saving work is the source from which the Church draws the water of grace… The Jubilee year is thus a year of grace, a year of mercy, a year of renewed conversion to God.”
— Pope St. John Paul II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente §14 (1994)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraphs 1471–1479, defines an indulgence as “a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church.” Plenary indulgences — the full remission of such punishment — are the signature grace offered during Holy Years.
The traditional conditions for gaining a plenary jubilee indulgence include: sacramental confession within 20 days before or after the jubilee act; reception of Holy Communion; prayer for the pope’s intentions; a pilgrimage act such as passing through a Holy Door; and complete detachment from all sin. These conditions, established by Boniface VIII in 1300, remain in effect for 2033.
The opening and closing of the Porta Sancta — the Holy Door — at each of Rome’s four major basilicas (St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls) remains the defining ritual gesture of every jubilee. The door, sealed with brick between Holy Years, is opened by the pope on Christmas Eve to begin the year and closed on the following Christmas Eve or Epiphany to end it.
Jubilee 2033: The Holy Year of Redemption
The 2033 jubilee is extraordinary on multiple counts. It falls outside the regular 25-year cycle — the next ordinary jubilee would be 2050 — and has been designated an “extraordinary” Holy Year, a category reserved for singular theological occasions. Earlier extraordinary jubilees were declared in 1933 (the 1,900th anniversary of the Redemption) and 2016 (the Year of Mercy under Pope Francis).
What distinguishes 2033 is the convergence of historic anniversaries: it marks 2,000 years since the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus (ca. A.D. 33) and, by extension, the founding of the Church itself when Christ commissioned the apostles at Pentecost. Most historians place the death of Jesus in either A.D. 30 or A.D. 33; the Church has chosen the latter for this millennial observance.
Pope Leo XIV, in language that has stirred both excitement and ecumenical hope, has spoken specifically of celebrating the jubilee in the Cenacle — the Upper Room in Jerusalem where the Last Supper was held and where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost. His aspiration for a common celebration with Orthodox and Protestant churches, including the possibility of agreeing on a shared date for Easter, has been described by Vatican observers as potentially the most significant ecumenical gesture since the Second Vatican Council.
The 2033 jubilee will offer the same spiritual graces as the 2025 celebration — plenary indulgences, special confessional faculties and expanded pilgrimage opportunities — though formal pilgrimage sites beyond Rome have yet to be announced by the Holy See.
“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
— Matthew 16:18–19