Pope Francis on Friday marked the second anniversary of his election as the leader of the Catholic Church by declaring an extraordinary jubilee year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a groundbreaking Vatican council.
The year, which will be dedicated to the theme of mercy, will begin on December 8 and run until November 20, 2016. December 8 is one of the holiest in the Catholic calender as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and is also the date on which the Vatican II council closed in 1965.
Speaking in St Peter’s cathedral on the second anniversary of his election as pope, the 78-year-old pontiff described the year’s start date as being “of great significance, for it impels the Church to continue the work begun at Vatican II.”
Vatican II is considered to be one of the defining moments in the history of the Catholic church — the point at which the clerical hierarchy accepted that some centuries old ways of thinking and acting had to be jettisoned if the institution was to remain relevant in the second half of the 20th Century.
Fifty years later, the Church is facing a similar set of dilemmas and is beset by division over how to respond to them and close the gap between what it officially preaches and how many of its followers actually live their lives.
Deep divisions over how the Church should relate to homosexual, divorced and co-habiting believers were aired at an inconclusive synod of bishops in October-November 2014 and will be revisited when senior clerics reassemble in Vatican City this October.