At the request of the Holy See, Catholic dioceses worldwide have designated local cathedrals, other churches and shrines as local pilgrimage sites during the 2025 Jubilee Year.

The new site provides details of cathedrals, shrines, churches and pilgrimages identified by local churches across Australia as fulfilling the requirement for obtaining a plenary indulgence.

Light has profound spiritual significance, symbolising guidance, truth, and the presence of God. The mascot’s design—a radiant figure holding a lantern—is a visual representation of these values.

Bishops’ delegate to the council, Bishop of Toowoomba Ken Howell, encouraged parishes to engage more closely with artists and architects, and for artists to read and reflect on the invitation.

The Holy Year 2025 theme, “Pilgrims of Hope,” is a reminder that hope “is not a habit or a character trait – that you either have or you don’t – but a strength to be asked for. That is why we make ourselves pilgrims: We come to ask for a gift, to start again on life’s journey,” Pope Francis said 11 January.

From 24 December 2024, when the Pope inaugurated the Holy Year, to 07 January 2025, the Vatican said, 545,532 people from around the world have made the journey along the lengthy boulevard leading to St Peter’s Square and crossed through the basilica’s Holy Door.

The celebration of a Holy Year every 25 years is an acknowledgment that “the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps toward the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.”