Pope Leo, closing Catholic Holy Year, urges kindness to foreigners

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Pope Leo closed the Catholic Church’s Holy Year on Tuesday by sealing shut the special “Holy Door” in St. Peter’s Basilica and urging Christians worldwide to help those in need and treat foreigners with kindness.

Leo, who has made care for immigrants a central theme of his early papacy, said at a Vatican ceremony that the record 33.5 million pilgrims who visited Rome during the Holy Year should have learned not to treat humans as mere “products”.

“Around us, a distorted economy tries to profit from everything,” said the pope. “After this year, will we be better able to recognise a pilgrim in the visitor, a seeker in the stranger, a neighbour in the foreigner?”

Holy years, or jubilees, typically occur every 25 years and are considered a time of peace, forgiveness and pardon. Pilgrims to Rome can enter special “Holy Doors” at four Rome basilicas, and can attend papal audiences throughout the year.

At 9:41 a.m. (0841 GMT) on Tuesday, Leo, dressed in gold-trimmed robes, pulled shut the special bronze door at St. Peter’s, officially ending the year.

The next jubilee is not expected before 2033, when the Church may have a special one to mark 2,000 years since the death of Jesus.

Vatican and Italian officials said on Monday that pilgrims to Rome for the 2025 jubilee came from 185 countries, with Italy, the United States, Spain, Brazil and Poland leading the pack.

The 2025 jubilee was marked by an historical rarity not seen for 300 years. It was opened by one pope, Francis, and closed by his successor, Leo.

Francis died in April after 12 years leading the 1.4-billion-member Church. The last jubilee held under two popes was in the year 1700, when Clement XI closed a holy year opened by Innocent XII.

Leo, who has pledged to keep Francis’ signature policies such as welcoming gay Catholics and discussing women’s ordination, echoed the late pope’s frequent criticisms of the global economic system on Tuesday.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, lamented that the markets “turn human yearnings of seeking, travelling and beginning again into a mere business.”

(Reporting by Joshua McElweeEditing by Ros Russell)