Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
January 17, 2001
Italian 9-year-old is last pilgrim through Holy Door
After a wild and crowded night that tested the patience of pilgrims and police, the last visitor to pass through the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica was a 9-year-old Italian boy holding a "101 Dalmations" balloon.
The "pilgrimage of latecomers" stopped at 2:30 a.m. Jan. 6, after the door had been kept open more than six hours past normal closing time to accommodate everyone.
Italian newspapers kept company with the crowd and said that after Maurizio Staltari and his balloon crossed the threshold of the bronze door, it was locked up for good. Later that morning, Pope John Paul II formally closed the ceremonial portal, which will be opened for the next scheduled holy year in 2025.
"We were the last ones this year. But maybe we'll be first 25 years from now," Maurizio's mother, Immacolata, was quoted as saying.
The evening began with loudspeaker announcements in St. Peter's Square that the Holy Door would remain open "until the last pilgrim." The latecomers, most of them Romans, took that literally. Many arrived at the basilica after midnight to gain the indulgence associated with passage through the door.
When authorities announced at 1:30 a.m. that the door was closing, a mini-revolt occurred in the square, the newspapers said. After pilgrims chanted protests and threatened to climb over the barricades, police telephoned their superiors and the door was reopened.
The river of pilgrims flowed for another hour, then finally ended with Maurizio.
Readers of the popular Rome newspaper La Repubblica received a different version, however. The newspaper's reporter who covered the event decided to pass through immediately after the boy. Then he wrote a first-person article declaring himself the Holy Year's last pilgrim. - CNS
