Pope Leo urges kindness to foreigners in closing Catholic Holy Year

VATICAN CITY - Pope Leo XIV closed the Catholic Church’s Holy Year on Jan 6 by sealing shut the special “Holy Door” in St Peter’s Basilica and urging Christians worldwide to help those in need and treat foreigners with kindness.

At a Vatican ceremony, Pope Leo, who has made care for immigrants a central theme of his early papacy, called on the

record 33.5 million pilgrims who visited Rome

during the Holy Year not to treat humans as mere “products”.

“Around us, a distorted economy tries to profit from everything,” he said. “After this year, will we be better able to recognise a pilgrim in the visitor, a seeker in the stranger, a neighbour in the foreigner?”

Holy years, or jubilees, typically occur every 25 years and are considered a time of peace, forgiveness and pardon.

Pilgrims to Rome can enter special “Holy Doors” at four Rome basilicas, and attend papal audiences throughout the year.

At 9.41am local time on Jan 6, Pope Leo, dressed in gold-trimmed robes, pulled shut the special bronze door at St Peter’s, officially ending the year.

The next jubilee is not expected before 2033, when the Church may have a special one to mark 2,000 years since the death of Jesus.

Vatican and Italian officials said on Jan 5 that pilgrims to Rome for the 2025 jubilee came from 185 countries, with Italy, the United States, Spain, Brazil and Poland leading the pack.

The 2025 jubilee was marked by a historical rarity not seen for 300 years – it was

opened by one pope, Francis

, and closed by his successor, Leo.

Pope Francis

died in April 2025

after 12 years of leading the 1.4 billion-member Church. The last jubilee held under two popes was in the year 1700, when Pope Clement XI closed a holy year opened by Pope Innocent XII.

Pope Leo, who has pledged to keep his predecessor Francis’ signature policies such as welcoming gay Catholics and discussing women’s ordination, echoed the late Pope’s frequent criticisms of the global economic system on Jan 6.

Pope Leo, the first US pope, lamented that the markets “turn human yearnings of seeking, travelling and beginning again into a mere business”. REUTERS