December 5, 2023

A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - In preparation for the 2025 Jubilee Year, two of the massive entry doors at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, have been sealed. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, blessed and sealed the two doors, which are scheduled to be reopened on Christmas Eve next year as a Holy Door for pilgrims. The ceremony took place on the first Sunday of Advent — a little more than one year before the start of the 2025 Jubilee Year, which will center on the theological virtue of hope. Broglio said the jubilee theme “Pilgrims of Hope” indicates that “we are on a journey and not pessimistic travelers,” highlighting the need for a message of hope amid ongoing crises around the world. Holy Doors, which are traditionally sealed prior to jubilee years, provide special graces for pilgrims who walk through them. A pilgrimage through a Holy Door also permits one to receive a plenary indulgence when the other normal conditions for such an indulgence are met. The 2025 Jubilee Year begins on December 24, 2024 (Christmas Eve), and concludes on January 6, 2026 — slightly more than one calendar year. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/256174/holy-doors-sealed-at-nation-s-largest-catholic-church Climate activists in Italy over the weekend disrupted a Mass celebrated by Turin Archbishop Roberto Repole, with the demonstrators reading from Pope Francis’ works on the environment during the incident. Activists with the climate group Extinction Rebellion appeared at the Turin Cathedral on Sunday during the archbishop’s Mass there, according to the Italian newspaper la Republicca. The incident reportedly took place “in the moments before the homily,” the paper said, in which “activists stood up one at a time and read aloud the two w