This year, 2025, has been a Ju­bilee Year in the Catholic Church. A Ju­bilee Year is cel­e­brat­ed in the church every 25 years. The theme for the year is “Pil­grims of Hope.” It is an ex­tra­or­di­nary year of mer­cy and grace; a call for spir­i­tu­al re­new­al, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, and for us to be true wit­ness­es of our faith in thoughts, words and ac­tions.

St Cather­ine of Siena’s words are note­wor­thy. She said: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

We are called to open our hearts and be em­pow­ered by the Holy Spir­it; to live our au­then­tic lives in Christ, rather than in the world; to en­cour­age peo­ple to find and share hope amidst glob­al chal­lenges like in­equal­i­ty, in­jus­tice, crime and vi­o­lence, war, and cli­mate cri­sis; to live with in­tegri­ty; and to pray un­ceas­ing­ly in or­der to re­ceive guid­ance and to find the strength to face the many tri­als that come our way. Be en­cour­aged by the words in Philip­pi­ans 4:13: “I have the strength for every­thing through him who em­pow­ers me.”

Pope Fran­cis in­vit­ed every­one to be­come bea­cons of hope, fo­cus­ing on re­new­al, con­ver­sion, and a re­newed re­la­tion­ship with God, oth­ers, and cre­ation. At the be­gin­ning of the year, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don is­sued “a clar­i­on call for peo­ple to dare to out­do God in gen­eros­i­ty. This is to be dis­played in fam­i­lies go­ing to the sa­cred sites, works of mer­cy and char­i­ty to the poor, and for­give­ness of debts. Gen­eros­i­ty will bring bless­ings from God” (CN).

Pope Leo XIV said re­cent­ly: “The Ju­bilee is draw­ing to a close, but the hope that this year has giv­en us does not end: we will re­main pil­grims of hope.”

He re­mind­ed the faith­ful that its deep­est gift en­dures. Hope, he says, con­tin­ues to shape the church’s jour­ney, call­ing all to re­main pil­grims who gen­er­ate life and re­new­al. He re­mind­ed every­one that “Christ, the true source of hope, is call­ing this gen­er­a­tion to be liv­ing wit­ness­es of hope, love, and peace in a world of­ten cloud­ed by un­cer­tain­ty and dark­ness …With­out hope, we are dead; with hope, we come in­to the light.”

He de­scribed hope as a the­o­log­i­cal virtue, “a pow­er of God,” that brings forth life. He in­vit­ed the faith­ful to lis­ten at­ten­tive­ly to “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” lament­ing the in­jus­tice of a world in which re­sources are in­creas­ing­ly con­cen­trat­ed in the hands of a few. God, he re­called, in­tend­ed the goods of cre­ation for all (Vat­i­can News).

As Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, ap­proach­es, note Pope Leo XIV’s Mes­sage for the 59th World Day of Peace. The theme is: Peace be with you all: To­wards an “un­armed and dis­arm­ing” peace.

As Elise Ann Allen from CRUX said, Pope Leo is­sued “a lengthy cri­tique of the arms in­dus­try, grow­ing in­vest­ment in de­fence spend­ing, and the gen­er­al ten­den­cy to in­vest in ar­ma­ment as a mil­i­tary strat­e­gy ... Pope Leo al­so called for greater in­vest­ment in jus­tice and hu­man dig­ni­ty, which he said are at ‘an alarm­ing risk amid glob­al pow­er im­bal­ances. We need to en­cour­age and sup­port every spir­i­tu­al, cul­tur­al and po­lit­i­cal ini­tia­tive that keeps hope alive,’ … the world’s great spir­i­tu­al and re­li­gious tra­di­tions have a sig­nif­i­cant role to play in pro­mot­ing peace and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ef­forts, be­yond blood, creed, or eth­nic­i­ty.”

He re­it­er­ates the church’s op­po­si­tion to de­ter­rence based on mil­i­tary force, and calls for dis­ar­ma­ment, di­a­logue and the con­ver­sion of hearts as nec­es­sary con­di­tions for a last­ing and un­armed peace. And he stressed the im­por­tance of politi­cians in pur­su­ing “more hu­mane re­la­tions be­tween States through­out the world.”

And, as T&T pre­pares for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Jan­u­ary 12, 2026, elec­tions, please note the re­cent me­dia re­lease by the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour, of which I am a mem­ber and sec­re­tary. The coun­cil is mon­i­tor­ing ac­tiv­i­ties to eval­u­ate ad­her­ence to the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct by all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, can­di­dates and their sup­port­ers tak­ing part in the elec­tion cam­paign. I en­cour­age you to vis­it the coun­cil’s web­site at www.po­lit­i­calethic­stt.org to view the code in its en­tire­ty. Note the sec­tion of the code which lists is­sues to which those in­volved in the cam­paign should com­mit, and the spe­cif­ic ac­tions which are deemed pro­hib­it­ed in the code. Mem­bers of the pub­lic are in­vit­ed to re­port pos­si­ble vi­o­la­tions of the code via email to in­fo@po­lit­i­calethic­stt.org.

Let’s build an in­clu­sive democ­ra­cy which is peo­ple-cen­tred, in which the rule of law pre­vails and there is ac­count­abil­i­ty, and trans­paren­cy.