The Vatican published this Monday, May 13, a guide intended for the faithful wishing to obtain forgiveness for their sins. It is a “how to” to help them in their process of redemption.
Enough to do penance. To help the faithful who seek to repent of their sins, the Vatican published this Monday a “how to” for believers.
“The truly repentant faithful (…) will obtain from the treasury of the Church a full indulgence, remission and forgiveness of their sins,” explained Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, who serves as major penitentiary, in a press release. of the Vatican.
This publication comes as the Catholic Church will celebrate its ordinary Jubilee of 2025. This Holy Year will be marked by numerous pilgrimages during which penitents will be able to obtain a plenary indulgence, that is to say the Forgiveness of their sins but under certain conditions.
It is these conditions, established in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII, which are recalled in the Vatican vade mecum. If special conditions surround the Jubilee year, the ordinary ways of obtaining Forgiveness will remain valid, notably confession.
32 million pilgrims expected in Rome in 2025
Thus, pilgrims will be able to receive this plenary indulgence, if they make a pilgrimage to Rome to one of the four papal basilicas (Saint Peter, in the Vatican, Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major, Saint Paul-outside-the-Walls), or in the Holy Land in one of the three basilicas (Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the Annunciation in Nazareth).
The Vatican has estimated that 32 million people will make a pilgrimage in 2025 to Rome to celebrate this Holy Year.
For believers who do not have the possibility of carrying out these pilgrimages, the “instructions for use” provide that they can obtain Forgiveness of sins, “by piously participating in popular missions, spiritual exercises, or meetings training on religious texts”, or “by visiting for a sufficient time people in difficulty (infirm, prisoners, isolated elderly people, disabled people, etc.)”.
They can also participate in “initiatives which concretely and generously implement the spirit of penitence”, for example by rediscovering “the penitential value of Friday, by abstaining, at least for a day, from futile distractions (real or virtual, conveyed by the media and social networks), superfluous consumption, as well as by allocating a sum of money to the poor.