The Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee of Migrants in Rome on 4–5 October 2025. This event forms part of the year-long Ordinary Jubilee, Pilgrims of Hope, and highlights the presence of migrants as bearers of hope within our Church.

People are on the move due to the wars, conflicts, economic reasons, the uncertainty in various parts of the world as well as other reasons, too. We talked to Sister of Mercy Maryanne Loughry who is “very excited” to participate in this Jubilee in The Eternal City. She is part of the International Network of Migrants and Refugees of the UISG.

“In this Jubilee Year of Hope we can see migrants as a source of resilience and hope for us and so we are here in Rome to celebrate them. This is something not very common in our world at the moment where migrants are often looked down upon”.

However, the Church raises them up these days, Sr. Maryanne underlines. We are invited “to look at the contribution they have made, and at the hope that they bring” to the countries to which they immigrate, and so they also “give us hope”, the Australian religious woman says.

Furthermore, Sr. Maryanne explains that the aforementioned UISG initiative tries to respond to the new challenges of this phenomenon in the current century. It connects the religious women to raise reflections, pray and articulate concrete answers:

“We listen to what the sisters are doing, we instill hope in their work, and we share what we do so that we can see that this is truly a work of God. In this Jubilee Year: Pilgrims of Hope, the migrants we commend to you as people who are truly vessels of hope for our church”.

Sr. Maryanne already spoke about the plight of migrants and refugees in December 2024 in our video series “Advent and Migrants”.