Expensive Freedom

On the eve of last year of the second millennium, the image of a hammer violently knocking down barriers to spiritual growth reminds us how many doors stand in the way.

A year from now, on Christmas Eve of 1999, the pope will take a golden hammer and hit hard the bricks sealing the Holy Door to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. When the door has been broken, and the debris cleared away, the pope will lead a procession through a sacred threshold. The ancient ritual of passing through the Holy Doors in the four major basilicas of Rome dates to the year 1500. But at least since 1300, when Pope Boniface invoked biblical precedent for consecrating whole calendar years, the first year of each century has been invested with spiritual significance in western Europe. On Christmas Eve 1999, the pope will lead cardinals, bishops and, in the course of the following year, many thousands of pilgrims from all over the world, into what will be both a sacred space and a new era - what the pope has decreed will be the Year 2000 Great Jubilee.

The Holy Door is normally open only for one year at the turn of the centuries and the quarter-centuries. Recalling the birth of...