Holy See invites entries for Jubilee 2025 Official Logo

By Benedict Mayaki, SJ

Pope Francis has charged the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization with coordinating the Holy See’s preparations for the Holy Year 2025 with the motto: “Pilgrims of Hope.”

As preparations begin within the Church, the Pontifical Council has launched a competition, open to all, for the creation of the Official Logo for the Jubilee 2025.

The contest begins on Tuesday, 22 February and ends on Friday, 20 May, 2022.

A Logo with identity and spiritual theme

In a statement on Tuesday, the Pontifical Council notes that the choice of the official logo, with which the “identity and the particular spiritual theme of each Holy Year is expressed, embracing the theological meaning around which this historic event is developed and realized,” is among the first activities to be carried out as part of the preparations for the Jubilee.

In this regard, the statement says that Pope Francis’s letter on 11 February, addressed to the President of the Dicastery, contains some useful themes that can be used to compose the Logo.

More so, the motto, “Pilgrims of hope” is the favored theme from which participants will draw inspiration.

The Jubilee’s logo, the statement adds, “symbolically conveys a message in an immediate and fitting way, and is an expression both of the universality of the Church’s message and of the particular spiritual needs of our contemporaries, who find comfort in this message, inspired by the theme of hope.”

In addition, the logo “makes official the initiatives, projects, communications and events that will be proposed for the preparation and celebration of the Jubilee 2025.”

Rules for submissions

The Pontifical Council indicates that submissions are subject to acceptance of the Rules and Regulations that contain all the information necessary to turn in one’s entry to the selection committee.

Further information will be available on a website for the Jubilee logo, where it will soon be possible to upload digital files of submissions.

Recalling the Jubilee Year 2000, the statement notes that the winner of the competition was a 22-year-old female student of an Art Institute whose entry has become part of history.

Jubilee year

A Holy Year, or Jubilee, in the Roman Catholic tradition is a great religious event. It is a year of forgiveness of sins and also the punishment due to sin; of reconciliation between adversaries, conversion, reconciliation and solidarity. It is, above all, the year of Christ who brings life and grace to humanity.

It is called a holy year not only because it begins, is marked and ends with solemn holy acts, but also because its purpose is to encourage holiness of life.

A Jubilee is “ordinary” if it falls after the customary 25-year period, and “extraordinary” when it is proclaimed by for some outstanding event. The last ordinary Jubilee took place in the year 2000 which ushered the Church into the third millennium. In 2015, Pope Francis proclaimed an extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy. The forthcoming 2025 Jubilee will take place in line with the 25-year gap period.