Pope opens door to millennium celebrations

By Lt'KE CorrEN
THE POPE announced the Church's plans for the Jubilee this week and called on Catholics to rededicate themselves to God in preparation for the new millennium.
In a Papal Bull given on Sunday. John Paul II decreed that the Jubilee year will begin on Christmas Eve 1999 with the opening of the holy door in St Peter's Basilica. The year's celebrations will then focus on Rome and the Holy Land.
The new Bollincarnationis Mysterium (The Mystery of the Incarnation), places special emphasis on the purification and reinvigoration of the faithful. The Holy Father writes: "The journey of believers towards the Third Millennium is in no way weighed down by the weariness which the burden of 2,000 years of history could bring with it.
"Rather Christians feel invigorated in the knowledge that they bring to the world the true light, Christ the Lord."
The Pope appeals for a "purification of memory" and asks Catholics to atone for dark episodes in the Church's history.
Mgr Nicholas Rothan, director of the Church's Millennium Office, said that atonement for past wrongs was an essential element of the Church's Jubilee preparations.
"It is so easy for secular society to look forward to the Brave New Age without realising there is this need for purification." he said.
The Pope invites Catholics to receive indulgences in the Jubilee year for release from the temporal punishment due for the sins already forgiven. "I decree that throughout the entire Jubilee all the faithful, properly prepared. be able to make abundant use of the gift of indulgence," the Holy Father writes.
An appendix to the Bull sets out conditions for receiving Jubilee indulgences, which can be received only once a day. They will be gained by celebration of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist on one day followed by set prayers. They will also be gained by pilgrimage to Rome, the Holy Land or local cathedrals and shrines.
Nicholas Coote, assistant general secretary to the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said that indulgences were a potential source of confusion. "My initial reaction is embarrassment," he said. "Indulgences are associated with childish superstition."
He said that reintroducing them now would require "a tot of spade work."
Mgr Rothan, however, emphasised that indulgences are and remain a valid element of Catholic tradition.
"It's something which is part of Catholic belief and people have this wrong idea of what an indulgence is."