D. Manuel Clemente returns to the UCP for the conference ‘Between two Jubilees’

D. Manuel Clemente, former Chancellor of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP), returned to the university to give the lecture ‘Between Two Jubilees: 2000-2025’ on 25 October.

The Patriarch Emeritus explained the origin of the word Jubilee, a biblical word that comes from the ‘ram's horn that announced a very special festivity that could be the recovery of family property or the liberation of slaves’.

Jubilee, also called Holy Year, is a time when people experience God's holiness. Its frequency has changed over time, initially every 100 years, and then every 50 years.

Later, towards the end of the Middle Ages, the ‘awareness of the brevity of life and the need to guarantee salvation through a special time of grace gained strength and urgency’ and the Jubilee or Holy Year began to be celebrated every quarter of a century.

D. Manuel Clemente highlighted the extraordinary Jubilees that have taken place throughout history, summoned by the Pope for ‘some special reason’, as was the case with the Jubilee of Mercy, instituted by Pope Francis in 2015.

The Jubilee of 2000, called by Pope John Paul II, was marked by an ecumenical and inter-religious dimension, as well as ‘astonishment’ at the glaring social inequalities that existed in the world.

In the next Jubilee Year, in 2025, Pope Francis wants to renew hope, urging Christians to be attentive to ‘the calls of humanity’.

The theologian mentioned the eight signs of the times that the current Pope has pointed out to be converted into signs of Hope, such as ‘Peace, Life, Prisoners, the Sick, Young People, Migrants, the Elderly and the Poor’, adding that ‘each of these signs has a concrete action, they are very operative, they lead to a very pedagogical action’.

The Patriarch Emeritus concluded with a question from Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 about Christian hope: ‘In today's language, we could say: the Christian message was not only informative, but performative. This means that the Gospel is not just a communication of realities that can be known, but a communication that generates facts and changes life.

This conference was held as part of the annual General Assembly of the UCP Scientific Society.