Jubilee: About 900 to 950 million pilgrims from around the world passed through the Holy Doors
Mgr Fisichella noted that between 56 and 62 per cent of the world’s Catholic population took part in the event. A total of 21,292,926 pilgrims came to Rome from 156 countries around the world. ""One thing is certain with this Jubilee, namely that mercy has become the protagonist, at least for a year, of the daily life of Christians.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, presented today the statistics of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy that just ended, during the presentation of the Holy Father’s Apostolic Letter Misericordia et misera.
In total, "900 to 950 million people from around the world passed through the Holy Door". In Rome, that number includes 21,292,926 people from 156 countries, helped by 4,000 volunteers from 36 different countries.
When he announced the Jubilee, “Pope Francis’s desire was specifically this: to make believers experience mercy so that it could become a tool of mercy,” Mgr Fisichella said. This meant “making mercy again something extraordinarily propulsive and effective in the life of the Church.”
"One thing is certain with this Jubilee, namely that mercy has become the protagonist, at least for a year, of the daily life of Christians. Entrusting the realisation of the Jubilee to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation was also designed to make this theme, which is the essence of the Gospel, the way of today’s evangelisation so as to strengthen the faith, shake indifference, and provoke people to [adopt] a coherent way of life."
Turning to the numbers, Mgr Fisichella said that 21,292,926 pilgrims visited Rome. "The most numerous group consisted of Italians, followed by German speakers, then the United States of America, Poland, and Spain, but also Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Venezuela, Chad, Rwanda, Angola, the Cook Islands, Nepal. . . In short, we can say that the whole world came to Rome. We can really say that the world visited us and that Rome was truly at the centre of interest of these pilgrims."
"As you know, for the first time in the history of the Jubilee, this Holy Year had a universal character. Around the world we opened the Doors of Mercy as a testimony that God’s love does not know any boundary. We had the data in our possession studied as far as possible. This resulted in an extremely interesting analysis.
“In countries where Catholicism is more deeply rooted, the percentage of faithful who crossed the Holy Door topped 80 per cent of all Catholics. This result was reached thanks to the dioceses. About 50 per cent of the world’s approximately 3,000 dioceses are in fact in Europe and in Central-South America. The growing number of dioceses in Africa and, to some extent, in Asia, also allowed us to reach millions of people in the rest of the world.
“Globally, thanks to data provided by some of the world’s largest dioceses, it was possible to estimate an average attendance of 56 to 62 per cent of the total Catholic population. This represents 700 to 850 million Catholics who crossed the Holy Door between 8 December 2015 and November 2016, in the [various] dioceses. To these must be added the faithful who crossed the Doors of Mercy opened in shrines and places of pilgrimage around the world.
“In fact, the biggest shrines saw an average attendance of 3 million people. For example, 5 million Catholics visited the shrine of Krakow. That of Santiago de Compostela beat the 2010 attendance record; the sanctuary of Guadalupe was visited by about 22 million pilgrims. Adding everything up, we get an overall result of 900 to 950 million of Catholics around the world passing through the Holy Door."
"Finally, lest we forget, this Jubilee also went online! More than 6,523,000 people visited the seven-language website, its pages were viewed more than 16,220,000 million times. Some 11,800,000 actions were recorded; 32,000 searches were made; and more than 1,524,000 downloads took place. Some 8,000,000 people registered with the site.
“Some examples illustrate the communicative power of some events: the video of Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square confessing young people was seen by more than 2,398,000 people with over 42,000 likes, 8,000 shares and 1,500 comments. The picture of Pope Francis in the neonatal ward of the Ospedale San Giovanni (St John’s Hospital) was seen in a few hours by more than 1,800,000 people with 6,600 shares. In short, communication did take place and became a truly global event in the space of a few minutes.”
Some 4,000 people volunteered during the Jubilee, including 1,800 from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) who dedicated exclusively to providing medical services at the four papal basilicas. They came from 36 different countries, "The oldest was an 84-year-old man whilst the youngest was 18.”
"All the pilgrims were given the image of a safe city. The Jubilee began with an unprecedented violent attack in Europe. Fear had discouraged many from setting out for Rome. With each passing week however, thanks to effective work maintaining security in the city, pilgrims were able experience the Jubilee with peace and enthusiasm.”
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