South African Catholic Diocese Unveils Yearlong Monthly Themes, Focus Areas of 2025 Jubilee Year Celebrations

For July 2025, the focus will be men, families, married couples, widows, widowers, grandparents, and the elderly, Bishop Phalana directs and devotes August 2025 to women and members of the Security Cluster.

September 2025 will see the people of God in Klerksdorp show recognition and support for migrants, refugees, the unemployed, and victims of human trafficking.

The role of environmentalists, government officials, missionaries, Small Christian Communities, and evangelizers will be the focus for October 2025, to be followed by a focus on the needs of the poor, orphans, street children, and the homeless, and the fostering ecumenical and interfaith dialogue during the month of November 2025. 

December 2025, the last full month of the Jubilee Year of Hope, will focus on advocacy for people deprived of liberty, victims of sexual abuse and cyberbullying, as well as farmers and farm workers, the South African Bishop of Klerksdorp Diocese since his Episcopal Ordination in January 2015 directs. 

Pope Francis announced the start of a Year of Prayer on 21 January 2024 in preparation for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, the second in his Pontificate after the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015.

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He said that the 2025 Jubilee Year will be “a year dedicated to rediscovering the great value and absolute need for prayer in one’s personal life, in the life of the Church, and in the world.”

Months later, on the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ on May 9, the Holy Father solemnly proclaimed the upcoming Jubilee Year 2025 at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica, during which he delivered the Bull of Indiction of the planned Jubilee, “Spes non confundit” (Hope does not disappoint).

The Jubilee Year provides the people of God across the globe an opportunity to participate in various planned jubilee events at the Vatican and in their respective Episcopal Sees and Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL).

To celebrate the 2025 Jubilee, Pope Francis scheduled to meet the various groups making a traditional pilgrimage to Rome.

In his statement published on March 10, Bishop Phalana encourages all Parishes of his Episcopal See to display a Jubilee Banner and pray the Jubilee Prayer at every Eucharistic celebration. He urges Parishioners to engage with the Jubilee’s message and Logo.

“Each deanery should identify a parish church as its pilgrimage center. Every Catholic should visit their deanery pilgrimage church or the Cathedral before the end of the Jubilee Year,” he directs.

Bishop Phalana goes on to encourage those who can afford to join a pilgrimage to Rome to do so, saying, “These pilgrimage sites, alongside a renewed emphasis on Eucharistic adoration and the Sacrament of Penance, will strengthen our faith as Pilgrims of Hope.”

“I urge you to live this Jubilee intensely, to take part in the pastoral and spiritual initiatives proposed in respective communities, particularly by making pilgrimages to holy places and to the pilgrimage centers near where you live,” the Local Ordinary of Klerksdorp Diocese says.

Silas Mwale Isenjia is a Kenyan journalist with a great zeal and interest for Catholic Church related communication. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communication from Moi University in Kenya. Silas has vast experience in the Media production industry. He currently works as a Journalist for ACI Africa.