According to Roman Catholic Church (RCC) tradition, a Holy Year is a year for forgiveness of sins.
It is described as a ‘Jubilee,’ which is a time for the punishment of sin, a year of reconciliation between adversaries, and a time for conversion. It is a time for receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a time of hope, justice, and a commitment to serve God with joy and peace with our brothers and sisters.
It is said to be a ‘Jubilee’ year that is special to Christ who brings life and grace to humanity.
Actually, it was not all that special to Jesus because he never talked about it.
Fortunately, we do not have to wait for a Catholic Holy year before we can receive the gift of forgiveness of sins. We do not have to wait twenty-five years before we are able to enjoy a time of God’s favor.
Now is the day of salvation (II Corinthians 6:2).
In the year 1300, Boniface VIII proclaimed the first Jubilee. We are not certain why it took 987 years of Catholic history to proclaim this, but, as they say, better late than never (No, Peter was not the first pope; Constantine was a much better candidate for that position).
My guess is it had a lot more to do with raising money than with piety.
In the Bible, the year of Jubilee was to occur every fifty years. The fiftieth year was to be consecrated, and liberty was to be proclaimed throughout the land. The Israelites were to release everyone from indebtedness, and labor was to cease for one year.
It was a picture of Christ’s forgiveness and setting us free from sin.
Unfortunately, the Catholics were not any better at observing their Jubilee years than the people of Israel were. They kept changing the rules for the next few hundred years until they finally settled on a consistent calculation.
As for Boniface VIII, one year after he declared the first Jubilee, he issued the most infamous papal document of the Middle Ages entitled ‘Unam Sanctum.’
It seems that King Phillip of France had the audacity to try a French bishop for treason and imprison him. We can only imagine the intrigue that this bishop was perpetrating against the king.
The outraged Boniface threatened to depose the king if he did not fall in line and pardon this bishop.
He proclaimed that the pope was the “One Holy” who had complete authority in all things spiritual and temporal. After all, he was the heir of Peter and, therefore, ‘Vicar of Christ’ over all human authorities.
You know, just like Peter.
It was one of the papacy’s many attempts to take over Western Civilization and exercise absolute control over the people within its sphere of influence.
In the spirit of seeking worldly power, it was with great fanfare that Boniface decided to create his own ‘Jubilee’ to encourage people to return to more holy living. The best way to accomplish this in his heathen mind was for Christians, with great faith, to travel (on foot) to Rome, to pray at the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and to receive the pope’s blessing in order to obtain the grace and strength to carry on.
It was the same form of cognitive dissonance used by modern fraternities in which the pledges receive severe ‘hazing’ to ensure great loyalty to the frat.
How depressing.
When Boniface saw the crowds coming by the thousands around Christmas of 1299, he took pity on the throngs who had walked for miles to receive ‘his’ blessing. In his magnanimity, Boniface, full of admiration for himself, decided to proclaim a “year of forgiveness of all sins.”
As if he had the power to do that.
All the best people showed up for this gala. There was Dante, who wrote “The Divine Comedy,” Giotto, the great Italian painter, and Carlo de Valois, brother of the King of France with his lovely wife Catherine.
With the success of this Jubilee, there eventually arose some controversy as to how often the Jubilees should be held. Some wanted every one hundred years while others wanted fifty. Clement the VI gave his consent to have them every fifty years.
Pope Urban VI would later decide to reduce this number to thirty-three years in memory of the earthly life of Jesus. However, when he died, Pope Boniface IX opened the Holy Door on Christmas Eve in 1390 for a spontaneous’ Holy Year.’
Since the turnout and the profits were so great, he called a second Holy Year at Christmas 1400.
Pope Martin then moved to proclaim the Holy Year in 1425. Nicholas the V called the 1450 Holy Year, and in 1470, Pope Paul II issued a Bull to fix the Jubilee for every twenty-five years.
The ‘Jubilee’ had more to do with filling the coffers of the papacy than forgiveness of sins. Every twenty-five years is twice as profitable as every fifty.
These people are shameless.
The venerable Pope Martin V (1429), full of piety, is noted for having once written a letter to the king of Poland which read,
“…it is a duty to exterminate the Hussites (followers of the Christian Jan Hus who made the futile attempt to reform Roman Catholicism)…these impious persons dare proclaim principles of equality (as in the Magna Carta); they maintain that all Christians are brethren and that God has not given privileged men the right of ruling nations; they claim that Christ came to earth to abolish slavery; they call the people to liberty…burn, massacre, make deserts everywhere…
What a swell guy. I wonder when Jesus gave the church the authority to order the murder of its political enemies. Jan Hus was one of the many reformers who were burned at the stake for daring to oppose the pope.
When John Wycliffe died, his body was dug up in 1428 at the behest of Pope Martin, burned, and anathematized for the crime of translating the New Testament into English so the common man could understand it.
Now that is a real fiend.
I guess all those celebrations of Holy Years were not really working.
The ninth Jubilee was solemnly opened on December 24, 1524, due to open rebellion against the power of the RCC. Christians were a little tired of being brutalized by inquisitions administered by people who are supposed to be called by the name of Christ.
Napoleon put a damper on the Jubilee of 1800 when he threw the pope in prison. He was reasonably sure that the pope was not going to crown him king, so he threw the pope’s worthless hide in jail and did the honors himself.
So, we didn’t get a Jubilee in 1800.
A similar problem occurred in 1850 when the Holy Year could not be held due to the exile of Pius IX. A rebellion by Italian nationalists forced him to bid a hasty retreat.
Apparently, the Italian people no longer wanted a ‘pope king’ and sent him packing.
In 1950, Pope Pius XII, also known as Hitler’s pope, proclaimed a Holy Year which was dedicated to the promotion of social justice and assistance of the poor and needy. Among these poor and needy were many of Hitler’s henchmen who were escorted out of Germany after WWII was lost, through the Vatican ratlines.
Hitler’s pope then proclaimed the Assumption into Heaven of Mary, the Mother of Jesus (or dare I say, the Mother of God), as dogma of the Catholic faith. The ‘Queen of Heaven,’ along with her minions in the Vatican, was ready to assert herself above even her Son.
On November 10th, 1994, Pope John II played ‘keep away’ with the Gospel when he ushered in the Holy Year of 2000.
The points that Pope John Paul II made at this event were:
- That God became one of us to reveal His plan of salvation (Nope, that’s not why he did it).
- God showed us the way to reach him (Well, kinda).
- The incarnation of Christ was to show us we have taken the wrong road (and all this time I thought it was to die for our sins).
- The Jubilee is a year of special grace, of remission of sins and the punishment due to them (Apparently, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was insufficient to pay for our sins and we need additional chastisement after we come to faith).
- The best preparation for the new millennium will be a renewed commitment to apply the teachings of Vatican II to the life of every individual and the whole church (and hardly anyone read this ridiculous document, so I guess we are all unprepared for the Millennium).
- Remember the martyrs of the Catholic Church (Does that include those guys who martyred thousands of Christians?)
- To engage in interreligious dialogue and heal the rift between Catholicism and Protestantism (I’ve got some dialogue for you, but you won’t like it).
And the Catholics wonder why we call its system a works-based religion.
Pope Francis has proclaimed that the theme of Holy Year 2025 will be “hope.” He read from a papal bull at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome that 2025 would be a Holy Year for Catholics around the world.
The overall theme of this atrocity will be threefold:
- Hope for a world suffering the impacts of war (which are promoted by the evil Globalists, for profit, and who are ‘in bed’ with the Vatican).
- The ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (which was an evil Globalist hoax that likely killed untold thousands of innocent people with a phony vaccine).
- To address the climate crisis (which is an evil Globalist hoax designed to impoverish and subjugate the world).
It will begin on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024, and continue through Epiphany, on January 6, 2026.
The pope then called on wealthy nations to forgive debts owed them by poorer nations. He also pointed to the imaginary “ecological debt,” which is connected to the commercial imbalances that adversely affect the environment.
The wealthy countries use a disproportionate amount of natural resources over long periods of time. The fact that this is because these countries are civilized and benefit from hard work is lost on the pope.
The pope claims that hope is needed by God’s creation which has been gravely damaged and disfigured by human selfishness. Human selfishness is how the pope describes enjoying the fruits of hard work and ingenuity.
He must really get upset when he reads Proverbs 6:6. “Go to the ant O sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.” Communists really hate that verse.
These “selfish people” insist on obeying God’s command to subdue the earth. This obedience to the first law of God is viewed as a terrible ‘evil’ that the religious fraud in Rome intends to remedy.
So, we’d better get to work on impoverishing ourselves so we can join the poorer nations in misery. Happy, prosperous people don’t like tyranny.
This particular Jubilee involves ‘indulgences’ for the forgiveness of our sins rather than faith in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. It requires pilgrims to visit four of the city’s major cathedrals to pay homage to the church.
I wonder how much that costs.
If we are lucky, that Jesus guy might even get an honorable mention, but don’t count on it. And there is no way the Gospel will be proclaimed to the world by these mindless heathen.
At the Holy Year of 2000, nearly 25 million pilgrims attended the festivities. Organizers expect between 30 and 32 million for the one that will occur in December of 2024.
Although the pilgrimage will be a boon ($) to the city and the church, some are wondering if there is sufficient infrastructure to accommodate so many people. Numerous construction projects are currently underway to deal with overcrowding.
Rome will need a miracle to complete the renovations on time. Fortunately, the European Union is going to ante up over four billion dollars in public funds to prepare for this celebration.
Interesting. The European Union is completely Godless, and yet it is sparing no expense to help this church spread its Gospel-free message to the world. Obviously, the autocrats who run Europe have no fear of the message the RCC will be proclaiming.
Maybe we Protestants should apply for a grant from the EU and hold our own ceremony. We can be certain that the fine people of the EU will not discriminate against those of us who would protest the RCC and its ‘message.’
According to my theoretical calculations, 2025 will be the last “Holy Year” of the RCC before the return of Christ. I have also speculated that this ‘church’ will be the source of great spiritual deception leading up to the rapture.
We need to watch this event very carefully to get a better understanding of what mode of deception will be used. The one thing we can be certain of is that it will not be proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Christ.
It will likely be proclaiming climate ‘justice,’ social ‘justice,’ and ‘compassion’ for those who engage in outrageous and destructive perversions.
The Jesuit pope proclaimed that “Hope is needed by those peoples and nations who look to the future with anxiety and fear.” The atheists and all pagans should be looking to the future with anxiety and fear because they are one heartbeat away from an unpleasant eternity.
Many protestants should be concerned and be prepared for what the papacy has planned for us. As the number of churches that preach the Gospel continues to dwindle, it will be much easier to fool the remaining inhabitants of this world with worldly nonsense.
The Bible teaches that the RCC is planning a totalitarian world government in which it is its spiritual enforcer. If history is our guide, that means brutal inquisitions, censorship of the truth, and no civil rights for Christians.
The nation of Israel also has cause for alarm. In an article by Stefano Costantino, Pope Francis has written a new book to mark the 2025 jubilee.
In an excerpt from “Hope Never Disappoints” that has generated headlines, he proposes a “careful investigation” by international experts into whether Israel’s actions in Gaza meet “the technical definition” of genocide.
They have already gone to the International Court of Criminals (formerly the ICC/ICJ) to file their complaints against God’s tiny nation.
For anyone who cares about truth and righteousness, which excludes the pope and his followers, this assertion is beyond insane.
It is demonic.
Fortunately, we Christians do not look to the future with anxiety and fear. Instead, we intend to don the armor of God and prepare for spiritual battle. Our spiritual combat will be directed at these papal clowns as they seek to deceive the world.
These people do not tolerate dissent so things are going to get really ugly once they are able to wield unchecked power.
But we have something they do not have: the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
We will need to wield it wisely and do the job that this ‘church’ has failed to do for the last 1,711 years.