Jubilee of the Holy Year

Why does the Society Saint Pius X go to Rome this year?
Extracts of Bishop Richard Williamson's letter to Friends and Benefactors of February 2000.

For the calendar year 2000, Rome is organizing both a Holy Year Jubilee, which is Catholic, and a series of ecumenical celebrations, which are not Catholic. For early August the Society of St. Plus X is organizing a Pilgrimage of Tradition to Rome for the Jubilee, not for the ecumenical celebrations! Let us turn to the Old Testament to think about what the Society is doing.

The word "Jubilee" comes from the Hebrew "yobel", meaning trumpet. Amongst laws laid down by the Lord God for the Israelites in the Old Testament and transmitted by Moses (Leviticus XXV), there was the command that every seventh year was to be for the Israelites a sabbatical year in which all debts were forgiven, and all work on the land was forbidden, the land's natural produce then belonging to and sufficing for all. After seven such sabbatical years, every 50th year was to be proclaimed - by trumpets - as a year of special forgiveness: besides all debts being cancelled, all property that had been sold since the last Jubilee came back to the original owner (so that all property sales must have been like leases, decreasing in value as the next Jubilee Year approached), and all Israelites that had been sold into slavery since the last Jubilee recovered their liberty.

(. . .) In brief, the Mosaic Jubilee broke various kinds of chains by which men will always tend to enslave one another materially. As then the Old Testament points to the New Testament, far surpassing it, so the essence of the Catholic Jubilee is that it breaks various chains of sin by which men enslave themselves spiritually. For if the remission of material debts, (perhaps foolishly or unintentionally incurred), can be a weight off a man's mind, like a new start in life, and an immense natural relief, how much greater will be the supernatural relief, if it is properly understood, of there being lifted off a man's spiritual life the crushing expectation of all the temporal punishment still due in Purgatory to his sins, punishment which he can see little normal chance of paying off in this life!

That is why down all the Christian centuries Catholics made penitential pilgrimages to the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome. In 1300 Pope Boniface VIII regularized this practice by pronouncing that year a Jubilee Year. In other words he pronounced that, by his power as Pope, he was opening up the Church's treasure-chest of merits and graces to make available to all pilgrims, fulfilling certain conditions in their pilgrimage, the full remission, or plenary indulgence, of all punishment in Purgatory still due to their sins once a valid sacramental confession had obtained remission of the eternal punishment due to them in Hell.

Popes following Boniface VIII I proclaimed Jubilees at various intervals until 1475, since then they have been given to Catholics by the Pope every quarter century. Thus Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II were in line with Catholic Tradition when they proclaimed Jubilees for 1975 and 2000, respectively. In 1975 Archbishop Lefebvre led all his seminarians from Ecône down to Rome to take part in the Jubilee, although Rome turning neo-modernist gave us a cold welcome. In August 2000 Bishop Fellay will lead all Society members available and willing to Rome, although Rome with 35 years of the Council now behind it risks giving us an even colder welcome.

(. . .) However, Catholics need not content themselves with the loose conditions diluting the Jubilee, nor need they attend the ecumenical happenings that distort it. The Society of St. Plus X is making the Pilgrimage of Tradition to the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome in order to pray for the Church (and for the Pope!), to gain the Jubilee Indulgences in the normal way, to attach themselves more firmly to eternal Rome and to give witness to the true Faith. Despite our failings, we all who share our Faith are the Roman Catholics. Despite their virtues, the Newchurchmen are Roman Protestants. Rome, its Basilicas and its Jubilees belong to us, not to them.

The Spirit of the Holy Year

Archbishop Lefebvre indicates the aims of the Jubilee pilgrimage in 1975:

"Pray, pray for an increase of faith, and do penance."

"Let us thank Our Lord and his Most Holy Mother that we were able to journey throughout our land and arrive at these holy places. Hers we have three particular aims which form our Jubilee pilgrimage."

"First of all, pray, pray more than ever. We need prayers. Prayer is the life of our souls; spiritual and reasoning creatures that we are, God has given us prayer as a way of lifting us towards Him who is our Creator and Redeemer, to whom we owe everything - Our Lord Jesus Christ. In this way our pilgrimage will be a real and deep expression of our prayer and our adoration, our thanksgiving, our supplication, our pleading for redemption and the remission of our sins. We are all sinners, we all need these pilgrimages to enable us to pray more, and pray where those before us have prayed with such fervour, such zeal, such profound devotion, such faith; that is, the martyrs who are here in this Basilica and all those whose images are found on the walls of this nave."

"Let us think of all the generations which have gone before us in these holy places and who in this way have stirred up their Faith. This gives us the second aim of our pilgrimage: we pray for an increase in our Faith. How much we need to revive our Faith, at a time when atheism rules and Our Lord Jesus Christ is forgotten! At a time when Our Lord Jesus Christ is eclipsed! ( . . .) So we will ask Him to revive our Faith and increase it. Indeed, how could we fail to experience an increase in Faith here, in the presence of those who founded Holy Church - those Apostles and martyrs who came here to shed their blood! We think particularity of St. John, the Apostle who suffered so much for Holy Church.

"Today we come to ask the good Lord to help us to pray and believe with greater fervour, with more conviction, and also to do penance. Let us not forget that we are sinners, and that we need to do penance. In fact, you are already doing penance by having come such a distance. (. . .)"

"So, as we make this pilgrimage, let us be penetrated with the Holy Spirit who inspired the souls of the Apostles. Let us ask all those whose relics we see or touch to give us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, to dwell in our souls."

"May our presence in Rome be the occasion of strengthening the faith of us all"

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in Rome for the 1975 Holy Year (Basilica of St. John Lateran, Holy Year 1975)

"At this time when our Faith is being attacked from all quarters, we must maintain it firmly and unshakably. We must never accept any compromise in the presentation of our Faith (. . .). The drama through which we are living, the tragedy we are undergoing, is having to see that our Faith is no longer being affirmed as something certain, and that as a result of a false ecumenism all the religions are being put on the same level. This is profoundly contrary to the truth of the Church. We believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour, our Redeemer; we believe that the Catholic Church alone has the Truth (. . .). The other religions may admit that there can be other beliefs and other religious groups, but we cannot. Why do the other religions admit this possibility? Because these religions were founded by men, and not by God. Our religion, our holy and adorable religion, was founded by God Himself, by Our Lord Jesus Christ (. . .)."

"This is of prime importance for how we regard those who do not have our faith. We must have an immense charity towards them, but a true charity. We must not deceive them by saying: "Your religion is as good as ours" This is a lie. This false ecumenism tries to make all religions think they have a value for salvation. This is wrong. Only the Catholic religion, only the Mystical Body of Christ avails for salvation. Without Jesus no one can be saved. Without grace no one can be saved. So we must have an immense, immense desire to communicate this faith to others. This is what the Church's missionary spirit rightly did (...)."

"So we must hold on to our faith, we must keep affirming it. We must not accept this false ecumenism which would try to make all the religions into "sister religions" of Christianity. This must be said very strongly nowadays, because this false ecumenism has had too much influence in the Council and after the Council (. . .). On these points, therefore, we must have a firm, solid and unmovable faith. This is entirely in conformity with the Church's tradition."

"So it was that the martyrs who are buried all around these basilicas and in all the churches of Rome, who suffered here in the Forum of Augustus, who lived in the midst of pagans for three centuries, were persecuted for being Christians. They were put in prison; just think of the Mamertine Prison, only a couple of steps from us here! Paul and Peter were imprisoned and put in chains for their faith."

"And should we be afraid to profess our faith? Then we would not be true descendants of the martyrs, true descendants of the Christians who gave their blood for Our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you think they would have said: "Well, since all the religions are equal, why shouldn't I throw a bit of incense in front of a god's statue? That way I shall stay alive". No: they preferred to die, they preferred to be thrown to the lions in the Circus Maximus. So many martyrs chose being thrown to the lions rather than offering incense to pagan gods!

Let our presence here in Rome, therefore, be for all of us the opportunity to reaffirm our faith; to have the soul of a martyr if necessary, the soul of one who gives testimony-for a martyr is one who gives testimony-testimony to Our Lord Jesus Christ, testimony to the Church."

(Extracts from the Homily given on 25 May 1975 in the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome)

Indulgences associated with the Jubilee
By Father Jean de I'Estourbeillon

We know that on the occasion of a Jubilee, Holy Mother Church traditionally opens to the faithful her treasury of Indulgences. We would be both imprudent and lacking in charity to deliberately ignore these graces which God offers. This article is an attempt to explain about Indulgences, independently from the more or less absurd events which surround (gravitate around) the year 2000 celebrations. It will show how necessary Indulgences are, what dispositions we should have and what we need to do to profitably receive these graces.

Sin and its consequences
What are evil, sin and penalty?

God created the world in perfect order in its kind. When man destroys this order, he causes a disorder, a damage, an evil which ravages the Common Good, (Summa Theologica, la Ilae, Q 85). Therefore when man deliberately and intentionally alters this order, he not only causes that which harms the Common Good, he also offends God, the author of this order; that is to say, he sins. (Ibidem, la Ilae, Q 71 a 61).

By freely and consciously doing evil through sin, man becomes responsible for the disorder committed. He becomes culpable, blemished with a fault (Ibidem, la Ilae, Q86). Now any fault must be fully repaired. The price which Divine Justice demands to correct this disorder is punishment.

To better understand the relationship which exists between the fault and the penalty, we can quote Pope Pius Xll in his speech to the Italian Catholic jurists on December 5, 1954 in Rome: "Penalty is the reaction needed by right and justice to the fault.

"The order violated by the culpable act requires the restoration of the integrity, and the reestablishment, of that order whose equilibrium was disturbed." In consequence, at the end of our lives, to dwell in heaven, not only must we have obtained God's pardon of our faults, we must also have perfectly repaired all the harm we have caused by our sins. The evil done has resulted in damage to ourselves, to creation, to society and to the Church.

What is sin in itself?

Saint Thomas has retained the definition of sin given by Saint Augustine: sin is a word, an action or a desire contrary to the Eternal law. In order to respect the Eternal law, man must live according to the moral norms which conform to the law, norms which are unchangeable because God is unchangeable.

Revelation teaches us that there are two types of sin: sin which causes supernatural death to the soul, and sin which does not cause the soul's supernatural death. (St. John, V, 16). Saint Thomas, in his Summa Theologica in explaining this distinction, makes an interesting study on the ideas of reparable and non-reparable; we will sum it up for you as it will help us better understand what is penance due to sin.

Sin which leads to supernatural death of the soul is mortal sin. As with mortal ailments of the body, it is an irreparable wrong. Why is it irreparable by man? The supernatural life in man consists in his rapport or union with his final end; this rapport, broken, cannot be repaired by anyone but God. Man is incapable by himself to repair a disorder which attains a Good above his own nature, therefore, once committed, mortal sin cannot be repaired by anyone but God.

Sins which safeguard the final end, while implying a certain disorder, are said to be venial; they deal with the means to our end (not the end itself), and are reparable.

Mortal sin is thus opposed to venial sin like that which is irreparable by itself or by an internal principle is opposed to that which is reparable.

Let us take an example in the natural order. I am poor, and in revolt I destroy a valuable work of art belonging to a powerful lord. In justice I must make restitution, but I know that I will never be personally able to repair the damage. I become a debtor of this king and he alone, in justice, has the right to commute my punishment. In committing a mortal sin, we commit a grave injustice that only God can repair.

In order for a sin to be categorized as mortal, three conditions are necessary:

-It must be an action strictly forbidden by the Eternal law, or strictly obligatory, such as the commandments of God or the Church.

-There must be a conscious and deliberate reflection of the act, and acknowledgment that the action is wrong.

-The person must freely commit or acquiesce to the evil.

We must note that, in order for a sin to be mortal, it is not necessary that the action or omission contrary to the Will of God be effectively committed; the intention of violating the divine law suffices.

God has granted, in His great Mercy that, through the grace of Christ, man may obtain pardon of his mortal sins through a good confession. The effects of this sacrament are twofold:

1. The remission of the wrong: the sin is pardoned, the fault erased.

2. The reparation of the consequences of the evil (irreparable in itself) caused by the sin, through the accomplishing of a penance.

Above all the penitent must have a true regret for his sins. This deep sorrow must be requested heartbroken to have offended God. If this regret is not motivated by charity, but by other motives (such as fear of punishment, the wickedness of the sin, the fact of having lost something . . .), this regret, which is called attrition does not obtain remission of our sins on its own. The Church nevertheless teaches us that, in the Sacrament of Penance, this regret (provided that it is supernatural and not simply natural or worldly), becomes true contrition by the merits of Our Lord and, in consequence, disposes us to receive God's pardon. This is what the Council of Trent, in its Session XIV, Ch.IV, says: "Imperfect contrition is called attrition . . . although without the sacrament of Penance it would not be capable, in itself, of conducting the sinner to justification; it however disposes the soul to obtain the Grace of God through the sacrament of Penance."

In that way even a penitent who has an imperfect contrition for his sins obtains remission for them through and in the Sacrament of Penance.

The second act prescribed in the sacrament of penance is a sincere confession of all mortal sins committed since the last confession . . . "must be enumerated by the penitent in confession all mortal sins which they have on their consciences after a serious and diligent examination." "As for venial sins, which do not exclude us from the Grace of God, in which we so frequently fall, while it is just, useful and by no means presumptuous to confess them, they can be expiated a number of other ways." (Council of Trent, Session XIV, Ch. IV)

The two last acts for a good confession are a firm resolution to never again sin, and the accomplishment of the penance imposed by the confessor. That is what is called Satisfaction.

One must nevertheless underline (emphasize) that to obtain remission of the fault and at the same time perfect reparation of the evil consequent to sin, perfect contrition of one's own sins is indispensable, that is to say, a sincere regret of having offended God (regret motivated by charity). It is difficult to have such a disposition. Consequently most of the time the Sacrament of Penance, even if it does remit the fault, does not accomplish a total reparation of the harm done by sin. Thus remains a certain purification to be done. If it is not accomplished here on earth, it must be done in Purgatory.

In His Mercy God offers penitents several means which fully complement the effects of the Sacrament of Penance. These means include all the works of penance as long as they are accomplished in view of reparation for our sins. We know these means: prayers, acts of charity (almsgiving), mortification . . . and indulgences.

Indulgences: excellent means God offers us today to repair the punishment due to our sins.
What does the word mean?

Indulgences are partial or plenary, depending on their remitting partially or totally the temporal punishment due to sin. Our interior dispositions are essential to the obtaining of the graces of the Plenary Indulgence of the Jubilee of the Holy Year. When we receive Our Lord, the effects of our communion depend on our interior disposition. In the same way, the Plenary Indulgences of the Jubilee Year which the Church accords her faithful can be ineffectual for those who do not have the disposition to really convert.

What are the conditions required to obtain the Plenary Indulgence of the Jubilee?

In order to benefit from a plenary indulgence every day during the Holy Year 200, it is necessary to observe the general conditions (which are the same for every indulgence) and also the particular work prescribed, which may vary.

The general conditions are the following:

- Make a good confession (it is not necessary to confess every day if one wishes to gain the indulgence daily, but the Church encourages the faithful to receive the Sacrament of Confession frequently, i.e. every two weeks).

- Detachment from any kind of sin whatsoever, even venial ones.

- Receive Holy Communion every day prior or after the prescribed acts. It is necessary to receive Holy Communion every day for which one wishes to gain a plenary indulgence. Communion of desire suffices in case of an impossibility to attend the true Mass. - Say prayers for the intentions of the Pope: a Pater Noster, a Credo, an Ave Maria, and a Gloria Patri.

The particular works prescribed by the Church are the following:

We must make a distinction between three circumstances:

A)   Catholics who can go to Rome, or to the Cathedral of their diocese or to the officially designated churches in their diocese:

For those Catholics able to make a pilgrimage to Rome in one of the following basilicas: Saint Peter of the Vatican Holy Saviour of Lateran, Saint Mary Major, Saint Paul outside the Wall, Holy cross of Jerusalem, Saint Lawrence, or in the sanctuary of the Lady of Divine Love, or in the catacombs, or who make a pilgrimage to the Cathedral or in one of the other churches and sites designated by the bishops of each diocese, the Directory of the Apostolic Penitentiary says (No. 1 and 3): "The faithful may obtain the Jubilee Indulgence (. . .) if, while there (that is, at one of the sites mentioned here above) they participate devoutly in the Mass or in a liturgical celebration such as Lauds, or Vespers, or in other acts of piety (for example the Stations of the Cross, the Rosary, the recitation of a Hymn in honour of the Virgin Mary)".

For us, certainly, there is no question about assisting at the various modernist liturgical offices. As there is no Mass of St. Pius V being said in those basilicas (besides very exceptional circumstances, when the priests of the Society would gain permission to celebrate), there leaves only the choice of the recitation of the Rosary or the performing of the Stations of the Cross.

For Catholics who just visit the sites listed above (not taking part in an organised pilgrimage), the same Directory of the Apostolic Penitentiary says: ". . . the faithful may gain the Jubilee Indulgence if, at those designated sites, they surrender themselves for a time to the adoration of and meditation on the Blessed Sacrament and end with one Our Father, one Apostle's Creed, and a prayer in honour of the Virgin Mary."

B) Catholics who are unable to visit Rome or the Cathedral of their diocese or one of the officially designated churches in their diocese.

"Religious persons bound to keep seclusion, the sick people and all those who for one reason or another are unable to leave their homes, may go to the chapel of their convent or home rather than visit a designated church; and even if that would be impossible, they could gain the Indulgence by uniting spiritually to those who perform the prescribed work normally, and by offering up to God their prayers, their sufferings and their privations." (Directory of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Introduction)

C) Catholics may also gain the Jubilee indulgence in any place in various ways:

First by acts of Charity towards the neighbour: "The faithful may gain the Indulgence of the Jubilee if they support, through a generous and significant contribution, the works of the religious in favor of the abandoned children, the youth in difficulty, or the elderly people who are in need, while fulfilling also the general conditions of the indulgences: the spiritual conditions (state of grace . . .), the sacramental conditions (Confession and Communion), and the prayers for the intention of the Pope: Our Father, the Apostle's Creed, a prayer to Our Lady, and a Glory be." (Directory of the Apostolic Penitentiary, No. 4)

The faithful will also gain the Jubilee Indulgence in any place by visiting for a certain period of time their brothers and sisters in need or in difficulty (the sick, the prisoners, the aged and isolated people, the disabled and so on . . .) as if making a pilgrimage to Christ present in them (Matt. 25: 34,35), fulfilling the ordinary conditions of prayers and sacraments.

The faithful are invited to renew these visits during the holy Year, by which they can each time gain the Plenary Indulgence, although not more than once a day.

The plenary indulgence of the Jubilee will also be granted with other initiatives expressing in a practical and generous way the penitential spirit, which is at the heart of the Jubilee. For instance, one may abstain for a day from unnecessary things such as alcohol, tobacco, or may fast or abstain and give to the poor a proportionate amount of money.

As a general remark, let us note that, in case of necessity, the confessor may modify or commute the works prescribed by the Church to gain the plenary indulgence of the Jubilee.

In that case, after having performed the work commanded by the confessor, the penitent should always recite one Our Father, one Apostle's Creed, one prayer to Our Lady and one Glory be for the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff.