Some of the people who are most desperate for hope — including suffering Christians in Ukraine, the Holy Land, and Africa — will be represented in Rome this week in a pilgrimage for the 2025 Jubilee Year.
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Over 1,000 people will take part in the pilgrimage, organized by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). ACN supports Christians around the world who face major difficulties in practicing their faith, very often because of religious persecution. The pilgrimage, which takes place May 7–10, will have the participation of people from 23 countries.
Coincidentally, the event begins on the day when cardinals will gather to elect a successor to Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday, April 21. The late pope designated 2025 a jubilee year and a time for Catholics to renew themselves as “pilgrims of hope.”
The theme of hope, said ACN president Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, “resonates especially with our pontifical foundation, since it is the underlying reason for the work we do: to take hope to those places where God weeps.”
Pilgrims will hear from some of the most dramatic examples of Christian persecution in the 21st century, including Ukrainian Greek-Catholic priest Redemptorist Father Bohdan Heleta, who was held prisoner during the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as representatives from Syria and Lebanon, who will share their experience in the region and the spiritual resilience of the Christians of the Middle East.
In addition, Father Olivier Niampa of Burkina Faso, which ranks high on the list of countries plagued by terrorism, will share how Christians survive and keep the faith in a region under constant threat.
The speakers will share their testimony at a May 8 event in the Basilica of St. John Lateran.
Piacenza said the ACN pilgrimage is a concrete way of experiencing the jubilee in communion with the suffering Church in honor of those Christians who continue to give up their lives out of love for Jesus Christ.
“The most convincing testimony to this hope is provided by the martyrs, who renounced life itself here below rather than betray their Lord,” the cardinal said, quoting from Pope Francis’ bull inaugurating the jubilee.
Regina Lynch, executive president of ACN International, explained that “the 2025 Jubilee is centered on hope, and hope was also a crucial issue for Pope Francis, and for us at ACN. With over 5,000 projects every year, in 130 countries, our mission is to console and give material aid but especially to provide hope to persecuted and discriminated Christians, and to Christian communities in grave need.”
In an act of communion with the universal Church, benefactors and members from the foundation’s 23 national offices, in union with ACN International, will jointly take part in this pilgrimage to strengthen their faith and their commitment to the suffering Church. Although a private audience with the Holy Father had been originally scheduled, this and other events have been canceled due to the pope’s passing and current conclave.
Citing Pope Francis’ support for the mission of ACN, which was designated a pontifical foundation under Pope Benedict XVI, Lynch said that praying at Francis’ tomb in the Basilica of St. Mary Major “will strengthen us to renew our mission. As a pontifical foundation, we will also be praying to be at the disposal of the future pope, as we have been since the first days of our work.”
The aim of the ACN-organized pilgrimage is not only to commemorate and accompany but also to help participants undergo their own spiritual renewal. They will pass through the Holy Door in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a tradition during a holy year that brings spiritual benefits.
“Passing through the Holy Door is not an act of magic but a gesture which implies meditation, prayer, and conversion,” Piacenza pointed out. “The true pilgrim recognizes that he has been seduced by false idols — selfishness, pride, money — and wishes to be cured by God’s mercy. Therefore, crossing the threshold of the Holy Door becomes an act of love and humility.”
Though the cardinal participated in the conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013, he is now over 80 and will not be able to take part in the one that begins today to elect Francis’ successor.
