HOLY YEAR OPENED.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18266, 27 December 1924, Page 11

HOLY YEAR OPENED.

* CEREMONY AT ST. PETER'S. (bt cable—press association—coptbight) (austbauan and n.z. cable association.) ROME, December 25. Holy Year, which is now celebrated every quarter of n century, and is expected to bring millions of pilgrims to Rome in 1925, was inaugurated by the Pope opening a Holy Door at St. Peter's with impressive ceremony. The Pope, attended by his Religious and Secular Courts, walked in procession to St. Peter's, and, amid a solemn silence, thrico struck the doors with a gold hammer, saying, "Aperite Mihi Portas Justitiae" (Open the doors of Justice for me), whereupon the workmen slowly lowered the doors, which were already cut away from the wall, and rolled them from the entrance. The sides and threshold were washed with Holy Water before the Pope passed through. The bells of St. Peter's and of 400 other churches in Rome then announced that Holy Year had begun. After the ceremony the doors of St. Peter's were thrown open and crowds of the faithful passed through the newly-opened doors, symbolising the Eternal Doors of tho City of God, each kissing tho door-post as ho or she passed.