University promotes pilgrimages, ND Forum, indulgences

Pope Francis inaugurated the Jubilee Year 2025, themed “Pilgrims of Hope,” by opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on December 24, 2024. Notre Dame is celebrating the Jubilee Year with pilgrimages to Rome, the Notre Dame Forum, and opportunities to receive plenary indulgences at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. 

Notre Dame President Father Robert Dowd, C.S.C. chose the topic “Cultivating Hope” for the Notre Dame Forum of 2025–26. Fr. Dowd explained his reasoning for choosing the theme in a university statement, saying, “In light of the theme the Pope has chosen for the Jubilee Year and its special significance for our Notre Dame community, I have chosen “Cultivating Hope” as the theme for the 2025–26 Notre Dame Forum.”

Fr. Dowd continued, “I believe this to be a fitting theme to follow on this year’s ND Forum theme, ‘What Do We Owe Each Other?,’ and one that is most timely in a world where hope is often in short supply.”

The first Notre Dame group to make the pilgrimage to Rome was the Notre Dame Magnificat Choir on their yearly tour in January. 

Magnificat Choir director Patrick Kronner shared some of the trip’s moments with the Rover. Among these, he highlighted “processing to the holy door at St. Peter’s as we prayed and sang psalms together; improvising music with guests at the L’Arche community outside of Rome; and, of course, the time that Pope Francis personally asked the choir to sing for him.” The Magnificat Choir performed a rousing rendition of the Notre Dame “Alma Mater” for Pope Francis during his weekly Wednesday audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall.

Elizabeth Krueger, member of the choir and a freshman in Farley Hall, described it as “a pilgrimage with extraordinary graces.” Krueger appreciated the “moving experience to bring such a strong part of our school culture to the head of the Church and that the same song that we sing at football games every weekend was also solicited in Vatican City.”

Additionally, the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture (dCEC) will lead a group of 24 undergraduate and graduate members of its Sorin Fellows Program on pilgrimage to Rome over spring break.

Dave Younger, dCEC Student Formation Program Manager, emphasized to the Rover: “Our pilgrimage, both in the planning and in the participation, has been and will be very focused on the Eucharist.” Younger went on to note, “We’ve also introduced Sorin Fellow Holy Hours to increase our adoration of our Lord and hope to have another Holy Hour while we are in Rome.” 

Student pilgrims are required to read Babette’s Feast by Isak Dineson, and attend two dCEC sponsored events before the pilgrimage departure: a lecture on the Jubilee’s origins, and a discussion on Babette’s Feast.

Younger concluded, “I am very excited for the pilgrimage itself as well as the fruits that will come from it.”

Pope Francis widened the conditions for receiving a plenary indulgence during the Jubilee Year, as specified in the “Decree on the Granting of the Indulgence During the Ordinary Jubilee Year 2025.” Conditions now include visiting “the Cathedral or other church or sacred place designated by the local Ordinary,” adding to the original four papal basilicas in Rome of St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major.

Bishop Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend designated the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, along with eight other churches in the Diocese of Fort Wayne, as Jubilee sites. A plenary indulgence may be obtained at these churches by attending Mass or another liturgical service and fulfilling the necessary other conditions.  

In an interview with the Rover, Father Brian Ching, C.S.C., rector of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, noted, “All basilicas have a special relationship to the Holy Father since their title is a personal gift of the Pope and thus they are natural places of pilgrimage during a jubilee year to receive the mercy of God.”

Fr. Ching described indulgences as “important tools of God’s mercy, granting the remittance of all temporal punishment from sins already forgiven, both for one’s self and for souls in purgatory.” He added, “They are an acknowledgement that our sin damages the soul, but that God is the divine physician and desires to heal us always.”

The basilica will have a Jubilee Mass celebrated by Bishop Rhoades on September 24, 2025. Fr. Ching described it as “an opportunity for us to gather with our diocesan bishop and celebrate the Jubilee year.” He noted that to conclude the Mass, Bishop Rhoades “will exercise a special privilege he is given during the Jubilee Year by imparting the Apostolic Blessing on the faithful. This is usually reserved to the Holy Father.”

On the theme of hope, which suffuses this Jubilee Year, Fr. Ching, in addition to pointing the faithful to the Bull decreeing the Jubilee Year, Spes Non Confundit, attributes its significance to its being “one of the great gifts offered by the opportunity to restore and renew our relationship with God offered during the jubilee year.”

Fr. Ching commented, “The mercy that we experience, especially through the indulgence, gives us hope … that God loves us even when we sin.”

Kathryn Bowers is a senior majoring in the Program of Liberal Studies and theology from Dallas, Texas. You can reach her at kbowers2@nd.edu.

Photo Credit: Irish Rover

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