A Guadalupan Jubilee Year for the fiftieth anniversary of Mexico City's new basilica

Leo XIV has granted, through the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Guadalupan Jubilee Year. It marks the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the new Basilica of Holy Mary of Guadalupe in Mexico City and of the transfer of the image of the Virgin to the present sanctuary, on 12 October 1976. The year will open on 12 October 2026 and close on 12 October 2027.

Tepeyac does not date from 1976. Tradition holds that the Mother of God showed herself there in 1531 and chose a poor man, Juan Diego, to ask the first bishop of Mexico, fray Juan de Zumárraga, that a temple be raised to her; the image remains the relic of that request. The Church has sealed this cult by acts she holds as her own: the pontifical crowning of the image, authorised by Leo XIII and accomplished one hundred and thirty-one years ago, which the opening of the jubilee will commemorate; then the homage of Pius XII, who hailed the Guadalupana as Empress of the Americas. It is to this chain that a building's fiftieth anniversary attaches itself, and not the reverse.

The grant attaches a plenary indulgence to the year. It is gained by the faithful who visit the sanctuary with devotion and contrition and there take part in a liturgical act, or who devote a period to prayer there, under the ordinary conditions: sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion, recitation of the Creed and prayer for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff. It may be gained for oneself or applied to the souls in purgatory. Nothing in this is new: through the treasury of the Church, an indulgence remits the temporal punishment due to sin already forgiven, as the Council of Trent defined.

The solemn opening will take place on Monday 12 October at noon, at the basilica, with the Mass of the Roses and the opening of the Holy Door, presided over by the cardinal-archbishop of Mexico City; according to him, the date coincides with the one hundred and thirty-first anniversary of the pontifical crowning of the image. Announcing the grant, he placed the year under the invocation of “Holy Mary of Guadalupe, Mother of the true God for whom we live”, praying that she “help us profit from this Jubilee and accompany us on this path of spiritual renewal and conversion”.

Sources. Council of Trent, decree on indulgences (Session XXV, 1563), and Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on satisfaction and the treasury of the Church. On the sanctuary of Tepeyac: the pontifical crowning of the image authorised by Leo XIII (1895) and the homage of Pius XII to the Empress of the Americas (1945).