• U.S.

Religion: The Road to Rome

5 minute read
TIME

As the sun set in a rosy Roman sky last week, 359 prostrate men in cream and gold vestments formed a vast rectangle in St. Peter’s Square, participants in the largest group ordination in Vatican history. It was held on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, presided over by the man who a dozen years ago this day had ascended Peter’s chair and assumed Paul’s name. The litany over, the new priests—Africans, Asians, Oceanians, Europeans and Americans—rose two by two and approached the throne for the personal blessing of Pope Paul VI.

It was the mid-point of the 1975 Holy Year. The 150,000 pilgrims attending the ordination and the throngs at other events were proof, it seemed, of the continuing strength of Catholic piety. The attendance is also something of a personal triumph for Paul. Whether at the 3½-hour ordination or at his massive weekly outdoor audiences, the rigors of ritual have served to rejuvenate the 77-year-old Pontiff.

Open Doubts. For centuries now, Holy Years have come every 25 years, except for 1800 and 1850, when political problems interfered. Still, it was no automatic decision to proclaim one for 1975. There were questions of the Pope’s health and the civic and ecological strains a Holy Year might place on the swollen and strike-plagued city of Rome. Moreover, a low turnout would proclaim Catholic indifference. Two years ago, Paul spoke openly of his doubts. “We have asked ourselves if such a tradition should be continued in our times,” he said, because of all the changes since Vatican Council II and “the practical lack of interest in many parts of the modern world in the ritual expression of other centuries.”

The first Holy Year took place in 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII decreed a year known as the “Jubilee,” after the Old Testament practice in which debts were forgiven every 50th year. In this case, however, the pardon was from penalties incurred through sin. In Catholic belief, the sinner was freed from eternal punishment (hell) through the sacrament of Penance. But temporal punishment (on earth or in purgatory) remained, and it could be removed in full by an indulgence granted to Holy Year pilgrims by the Pope, who controlled an “inexhaustible” treasury of the merits of Christ, Mary and the saints. In medieval and Renaissance times the church raised money by giving indulgences in return for donations. Later eliminated, this corrupting practice was the spark that set off Luther’s Reformation.

At the last Holy Year in 1950, indulgences were still much on the mind of pilgrims as they visited St. Peter’s and three other basilicas, reciting the required number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. In 1975, a full (“plenary”) indulgence is still offered to pilgrims who pray in at least one of the basilicas, or to persons who join local pilgrimages if they are unable to travel to Rome. In the new interpretation that emerged out of Vatican II, Pope Paul has emphasized that the church’s aim in granting indulgences is not only to “expiate” deserved punishment, but to stimulate “works of piety, penance and charity.”

It was during the Holy Year of 1950 that Pius XII decreed that Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven; he also condemned those who thought otherwise. The Papal theme for the current Holy Year, by contrast, is “renewal and reconciliation,” starting within the polarized Catholic Church but extending to all mankind.

Indeed, it seemed that nearly all mankind was represented in Rome. After a disappointing trickle of pilgrims early in the year, the crowds finally began to come. By Easter, it began to be clear that this Holy Year would break all attendance records. As of last week, more than 3 million pilgrims had participated, twice the number who went to Rome in 1950.

Plane Crash. Among them were 10,000 Croats in national costume, busloads from Communist Poland, Filipinos, Samoans, Americans who took cost-cutting jet package tours ($585 per person from New York City for a week, including meals), 40 Australian aborigines who lost all their belongings in a plane crash en route, and Calabrian peasants pushing their way through the crowds for a better peek at the Pope. Paul greets as many groups as he can (“The large group from Charlotte, N.C., gives us particular joy”). A surprising number of pilgrims are youths in blue jeans, waiting in line with their knapsacks at the Vatican information booths.

There is also an army of pickpockets who frequent the crowded city buses and invade the very sanctum of St. Peter’s, where an Englishman had £120 lifted while he knelt to kiss the Holy Door. That door is sealed by bricks and ceremoniously opened at the start of a Holy Year. Swindlers are selling fake Holy Door bricks—complete with papal insignia—for $50. Other cons: Vatican commemorative coins with a 650% markup and outrageous prices for phony scrolls supposedly blessed by the Pope.

The ripoffs, however, were a minor annoyance in the festivities. For a troubled church and the Pope who must lead it, the year has become a boost to morale. And to Paul, at least, it is something more. “The Jubilee of 1975,” he optimistically told the College of Cardinals last month, is “a great demonstration of the vitality of the Vatican Council and its application to the level of the universal church. We have here an indication that its teachings were not in vain.”

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com