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Holy Year 2000: Opening the Holy DoorSouvenir Sheet, Scott 1136 (1999) As we enter the month of July and the second half of the Holy Year of 2025, the Jubilee of Hope, we look back a series of emails from last year regarding the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s Basilica. In 1999, as part of the release of stamps for the Holy Year of 2000, Vatican City issued a set of eight stamps and a souvenir sheet focused on the “Opening of the Holy Door for the Holy Year 2000”. The souvenir sheet is shown at the top of this article. To get some insights into stamps picturing the Holy Door, last year we were fortunate to hear from our friend Patrick Moore in Bonn, Germany, who provided the following comment regarding stamps showing the Holy Door: “Strange as it may seem, the first time that the Holy Door…appeared on stamps was not on Vatican stamps but on a set of six from Mussolini's Italy, about five years before the Lateran Pacts were signed in 1929. Italy issued the set on Christmas Eve 1924 to mark the Holy Year of 1925. The lower four values showed Roman basilicas, while the two high denominations depicted the pope opening and closing the Holy Door, respectively.”Italy issued a six-stamp semi-postal set (Scott Italy B20 to B25) on Christmas Eve, 1924. The surtax on each stamp was to help defray the costs of the Holy Year. The first four stamps depicted the major Roman Basilicas (Saint Peter’s, Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major and Saint Paul Outside the Walls). The last two stamps in the set show Pope Pius XI OPENING the Holy Door (on Christmas Eve, 1924) and then CLOSING the Holy Door one year later (on Christmas Eve, 1925). This was a bit of a gamble, since neither event had yet occurred for Holy Year 1925 when the stamps were issued, and presumed the Pope would still be around to close the door at the end of the Holy Year. And, as we have seen this year, although Pope Francis opened the Holy Door for the Jubilee of Hope for 2025, a new pope will close the door at the end of Holy Year 2025 as a result of the death of Pope Francis. This raised some additional questions: why would Italy issue a Holy Year stamp set in the early years of the Fascist regime (other than to raise revenue)? Was this an attempt to improve relations with the Holy See? Is it possible the stamps foretold a thawing of relations between Italy and the Holy See, leading to the Lateran Pacts in 1929? Patrick adds: “I’ve done some checking and am pretty sure the Italian set was intended as a sign of goodwill toward the Pope and the Church. Mussolini wanted to end the decades-old feud between the Church and Italian state to win popular support in the overwhelmingly Catholic country. In 1924, Mussolini had his three children given communion and the following year remarried his wife in a Church ceremony (their first wedding had been a civil ceremony). He himself was and remained an atheist and was anti-clerical, views he had acquired early on from his father. I agree it was a bit risky to issue stamps in 1924 showing events from 1925 that might never take place!”Due to copyright protections, we are not able to reproduce images of the Italian semi-postal set, but by clicking on the Ebay link in the references the Italian set can be viewed. This story is yet another example of how our hobby provides great connections, both with our fellow members and to the history behind the stamps. Thanks to Patrick for once again sharing his knowledge with us! REFERENCES: |
