From the Editor
According the book of Leviticus, the bibLicAL JubiLee wAs A time to forgive debts, return LAnd to its originAL owners, And free cAptives And other ensLAved peopLe.
According to the book of Leviticus, every 49th year, the sound of a shofar, a ram’s horn, would usher in the jubilee year. “This solemn proclamation was meant to echo throughout the land and to restore God’s justice in every aspect of life,” said Pope Francis in a message for the World Day of Peace earlier this year. “In the use of the land, in the possession of goods and in relationships with others, above all the poor and the dispossessed…no one comes into this world doomed to oppression: all of us are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the same Father, born to live in freedom, in accordance with the Lord’s will.” 1
According the book of Leviticus, the biblical Jubilee was a time to forgive debts, return land to its original owners, and free captives and other enslaved people. It was a call to return the community to right relationships—with God, one another, and the Earth—and offered not just a moment of economic reset but also a spiritual reorientation.
The Catholic Church adopted the practice of celebrating a Jubilee Year in 1300; since then, there has been one about every 25 years. Today, the most familiar image of a jubilee is the opening of the holy doors in Rome, which symbolize pilgrims’ passage from sin to grace. For many, the jubilee has become a spiritual celebration more than a concrete call to justice.
Both St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis challenged this over-spiritualization of jubilee, however. In that same World Peace Day address, Pope Francis called on Catholics to celebrate the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope in concrete ways: forgiving the debt of nations in the Global South, caring for life from conception to death, and reducing the money earmarked for global militaries and diverting it toward solving issues such as hunger and climate change.
IPJC is one of the organizations participating in these pilgrimages. For us, this means deepening our engagement in the Sacred Salmon campaign and in our relationships with Indigenous communities across the Pacific Northwest working to preserve salmon populations. In September, we will be participating in Xaalh and the Way of the Masks, a two-week campaign that seeks to bring attention to the threats facing both the land and Indigenous lifeways in the Pacific Northwest. According to their website, the campaign “is dedicated to, and honors, our ancestral Indigenous knowledge that all things are related to, and through, Xaalh: a sacred trust with the balance of life.”
photo on the cover shows Celilo Falls in 1941: Once a sacred fishing station for many Pacific Northwest tribes, Celilo Falls was submerged in 1957 with the construction of the Dalles Dam, which can be seen which can be see in the image above. This powerful site was a stop on the All Our Relations Journey and will also be part of the upcoming Way of the Mask pilgrimage. It is a place of lament, remembrance, and hope for transformation. Photo picryl.com media.
Inspired by Pope Francis’ clarion call to reclaim Jubilee as a time for repairing relationships with both one another and the Earth, more than 20 Catholic organizations in the United States came together to host and participate in Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation, local pilgrimages that they see as “sacred opportunities to pray for the grace to encounter Christ in Creation and renew our relationships with God, the Earth, and one another.” 2
1 Pope Francis, Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the 58th World Day of Peace 2025, Vatican website, December 8, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/ documents/20241208-messaggio-58giornatamondiale-pace2025. html
2 “Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation,” accessed June 4, 2025, https:// catholicpilgrimsofhope.org/.
The articles in this issue look at pilgrimages for creation from a variety of perspectives, both in the Pacific Northwest and nationally. As you read the reflections and stories in this issue, I invite you to consider how your own life and ministry might be affected by Pope Francis’ call this Jubilee year. What might it mean to walk as a pilgrim of hope in the places you call home? What debts—ecological, historical, relational—still cry out for justice? What would it take to restore right relationship in your own corner of the world?
May this Jubilee Year stir in all of us a deeper reverence for creation, a renewed commitment to justice, and the courage to walk together toward healing and wholeness.
—Emily Sanna, Editor