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 JUBILEE

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JUBILEE

indulgence ". It implied, however, that any ap- proved Roman confessor had faculties to absolve from reserved cases, and that the lilierty thus vir- tually accorded of selecting a confessor was regarded as a privilege. The phras<' was an unscientific one, and was not commonly used l)y theuiofcians. It cer- tainly did not mean, as Dr. II. C. Lea and others have pretended, that the indulgence of itself released from guilt as well as penalty. The guilt was re- mitted only in virtue of sacramental confession and the sorrow of the penitent. The sovereign pontiff never claimed any power of absolving in grievous matters apart from these. "All theologians", re- marks Maldonatus with truth, "unanimously with- out a single exception, reply that an indulgence is not a remission of guilt but of the penalty." (See Paulus in "Zeitschrift f. kath. Theologie", 1899, pp. 49 sqq., 423 sqq., 743 sqq., and "Dublin Review", Jan., 1900, pp. 1 sqq.)

As we have seen, Boniface VIII had intended that the Jubilee should be celebrated only once in a hundred years, but some time before the middle of the four- teenth century, great instances, in which St. Bridget of Sweden and the poet Petrarch amongst others hatl some share, were made to Pope Clement VI, then re- siding at Avignon, to anticipate this term, particu- larly on the ground that the average span of human life was so short as otherwise to render it impossible for many to hope to see any Jubilee in their own gen- eration. Clement VI assented, and in 1350 accord- ingly, though the pope did not return to Rome him- self, Cardinal Gaetani Ceccano was dispatched thither to represent His Holiness at the Jubilee. On this occasion daily visits to the church of St. John Lateran were enjoined, besides those to the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul without the walls, while at the next Jubilee, St. Mary Major was added to the list. The visit to these four churches has remained un- changed ever since as one of the primary conditions for gaining the Roman Jubilee. The celebration next following was held in 1390, and in virtue of an ordi- nance of Urban VI, it was proposed to hold a Jubilee every thirty-three years as representing the period of the sojourn of Christ upon earth and also the average span of human life. Another Jubilee was accordingly proclaimed by Martin V in 1423 (see Pastor, " Ge- schichte der Pitpste", 3rd ed., I, 798-SSO), but Nich- olas V, in 1450, reverted to the quinquagesimal period, while Paul II decreed that the Jubilee should be cele- brated every twenty-five years, and this has been the normal rule ever since.

The Jubilees of 1450 and 1475 were attended by vast crowds of pilgrims, and that of 1450 was unfor- tunately made famous by a terrible accident in which nearly two hundred persons were trampled to death in a panic which occurred on the bridge of Sant' An- gelo. But even this disaster had its good effects in the pains taken afterwards to widen the thoroughfares and to provide for the entertainment and comfort of the pilgrims by numerous charitable organizations, of which the Archconfraternity of the Holy Trinity, founded by St. Philip Neri, was the most famous. On the other hand, it is impossible to doubt the evidence of innumerable witnesses as to the great moral renova- tion produced by these celebrations. The testimony comes in many cases from the most unexceptionable sources, and it extends from the days of Boniface VIII to the striking account given by Cardinal Wise- man ("Last Four Popes", pp. 270, 271) of the only Jubilee held in the nineteenth century, that of 1825. The omission of the Jubilees of lS00,'l850, and 1875 was due to political disturbances, but with these ex- ceptions the celebration has been uniformly main- tained every twenty-five years from 1450 until the present time. The Jubilee of 1900, though shorn of much of its splendour by the confinement of the Holy Father within the limits of the Vatican, was, neverthe-

less, carried out by Pope Leo XIII with all the solem- nity that was possible.

Ceremonial of the Jubilee. — The most distinc- tive feature in the ceremonial of the Jubilee is the un- walling and the final walling up of the "holy door" in each of the four great basilicas which the pilgrims arc required to visit. It was formerly supposed that this rite was instituted by Alexander VI in the Jubilee of 1500, but this is certainly a mistake. Not to speak of a supposed vision of Clement VI as early as 1350, who is said to have been supernaturally admonished to " open the door ", we have several references to the "holy door" or the "golden gate" in connexion with the Jubilee long before the year 1475. The earliest ac- count seems to be that of the Spanish pilgrim, Pero Tafur, c. 1437. He connects the Jubilee indulgence with the right of sanctuary, which, he maintains, ex- isted in pagan times for all who crossed the threshold of the puerta tar pea upon the site of the Lateran. He goes on to say that, at the request of Constantine, Pope Sylvester published a Bull proclaiming the same immunity from punishment for Christian sinners who took sanctuary there. The privilege, however, was grossly abused and the popes consequently ordered the door to be walled up at all seasons save certain times of special grace. Formerly the door was un- walled only once in a hundred years, tliis was after- wards reduced to fift.y, and now, says Tafur, "it is opened at the will of the pope" (.\ndan9as ^ Viajes de Pedro Tafur, p. 37). However legendary all this may be, it is hardly possible that the story could have been quite recently fabricated at the time Tafur recorded it. Moreover, a number of witnesses allude to the unwall- ing of the holy door in connexion with the Jubilee of 1450. One of these, the Florentine merchant Gio- vanni Rucellai, speaks of the five doors of the Lateran basilica, " one of which is always walled up except dur- ing the Jubilee year, when it is broken down at Christ^ mas wfien the Jubilee commences. The devotion which the populace has for the bricks and mortar of which it is composed is such that at the unwalling, the fragments are immediately carried off by the crowd, and the foreigners [gli oltremontani] take them home as so many sacred relics. . . . Out of devotion every one who gains the indulgence passes through that door, which is walled up again as soon as the Jubilee is ended" (.•i^rcliivio di Storia Patria, IV, 569-570). AH tliis describes a rite which has lasted unchanged to the present day, and which has nearly always sup- plied the principal subject depicted upon the long series of Jubilee medals issued by the various popes who have opened and closed the holy door at the be- ginning and end of each Jubilee year. Each of the four basiUcas has its holy door. That of St. Peter's is opened on the Christmas Eve preceding the anno santo by the pontiff in person, and it is closed by him on the Christmas Eve following. The pope knocks upon the door three times with a silver hammer, singing the versicle "Open unto me the gates of justice". The masonry, which has been loosened beforehand, is made to fall in at the third blow, and, after the threshold has been swept and washed by the Jubilee peniten- tiaries, the pope enters first. Each of the holj' doors at the other basilicas is similarly opened by a cardinal specially deputed for the purpose. The symbolism of this ceremony is probably closely connected with the idea of the exclusion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, and the expulsion and reconciliation of penitents ac- cording to the ritual provided in the Pontifical. But it may also have been influenced by the old idea of seeking sanctuary, as Tafur and Rucellai suggest. The sanctuary knocker of Durham Cathedral still re- mains to remind us of the important part which this institution played in the life of our forefathers.

The Jubilee Indulgence. — This is a plenary in- dulgence which, as stated by Boniface VIII in Con- sistory, it is the intention of the Holy See to grant