ROME – Romans are gesticulating in overdrive and griping in snarled traffic as the Eternal City overhauls piazzas, fountains, bridges and tunnels. Even more are ranting about surging rents and greedy landlords poised to cash in on a coming tsunami of tourists.
On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis will symbolically open the sealed Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, inaugurating a jubilee year that is expected to draw a whopping 32 million visitors to Rome – 10 million more than this year’s record high.
Jubilees are a Catholic Church tradition dating to 1300. They are considered a time for reconciliation and renewal. Catholics who visit designated sacred sites and engage in redemptive activities can obtain a jubilee indulgence – a sort of spiritual deep cleaning and mega-pardon for earthly sins.
For many Romans, though, this jubilee feels like a mixed blessing. It is set to give a massive boost to the tourism industry, a pillar of the Roman economy. It has also helped motivate Rome’s biggest facelift since the 1960 Olympic Games. With $5 billion worth of projects funded by the national government, the city is transforming in ways that will outlast the pilgrims.
But the coming jubilee has left Romans living amid a giant construction site, and has once again highlighted the double-edged sword of tourism.
The Spanish Steps are already overcrowded. Officials have been talking about how to limit the number of visitors at the Trevi Fountain. What happens when millions more people pour in?
From his office overlooking the Roman Forum, a gathering place for centuries, Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said that he understands the grumbling about the jubilee but that it is an unavoidable fact of Roman life every 25 years.
“It’s not like ‘Oh, the mayor, the bloody mayor, decided to have a jubilee.’ We cannot say ‘No, we don’t want it,’” he said. Romans “of course are not happy, because it’s inconvenient. But they are also happy … they know we are transforming the city.”
No project is more dramatic than the elimination of cars from Piazza Pia. The $82 million redevelopment will allow a free flow of pedestrians from the papal fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo to the Via della Conciliazione leading to St. Peter’s Square. In a city of archaeological treasures, excavation work unearthed the ancient portico and remains of Emperor Caligula’s garden.
To the chagrin of some Romans and the delight of others, the jubilee arrives as a city of ancient glory is having a modern moment. TikTok revealed how often men think about the ancient Roman Empire. Ridley Scott recently fetishized Rome, again, with his “Gladiator” sequel. Even Emily in Paris ditched the City of Lights for the Seven Hills by the Tiber.
In 2025, she will be joined by millions of Catholics from around the world. They will begin to arrive amid a trademark dose of Roman chaos and controversy. Up-in-arms activists are hacking Airbnb drop boxes off apartment entranceways. In a Holy Year meant to honor the less fortunate, activists have also criticized the clearing of a migrant camp at the city’s main train station.
“Now with the jubilee, they want the dust under the bed,” said Gianluca Puricelli, who works with Binario 95, a group aiding the homeless near Termini station and other parts of Rome. “I don’t like this. Look, I’m Christian … but when I see big chains of gold or [religious robes] worth thousands and thousands of euros, I don’t know.”
The denizens of Rome are bemoaning the Disneyfication of their city – epitomized by the plan for aspiring gladiators to go mano a mano for the first time in 2,000 years in mock Colosseum fights sponsored by Airbnb.
Even the reverent Vatican is inaugurating an Epcot-like experience, in partnership with Microsoft. Buzzing drones mapped St. Peter’s Basilica, capturing 400,000 images. Artificial intelligence then processed the data into a big-screen 3D adventure that tracks the church’s evolution from swampland to architectural masterpiece, allowing visitors to glimpse minute details – including spider nests inside the basilica’s soaring dome.
Asked what message he had for jubilee-weary Romans, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Vatican’s point man on the jubilee, appealed for patience, reminding residents why many of Rome’s glories were built. “The Sistine Chapel was built for a jubilee,” Fisichella said. “If you go anywhere in Rome, you will see many things have been realized for the coming of a jubilee.”
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the cleric in charge of St. Peter’s, said separately: “This jubilee is a chance, not only for financial gain, but also for fraternity.”
For the Holy See, the jubilee should indeed amount to a windfall. The Vatican could begin to plug a gaping budget deficit through museum revenue, donations, purchased papal blessings, and pilgrimage stays in monasteries, convents and Catholic hostels.
“A [full] year of charity and fundraising events – that’s money rolling in,” said Giovanni Di Bartolomeo, an economist at Sapienza University of Rome.
Italy largely picks up the bill. But it should recoup its jubilee investment through tourist spending on hotels, restaurants, shopping and entertainment, said Michele Costabile, a marketing professor at Luiss University who has studied the topic. Pilgrims tend to have shallower pockets, but such vast visitor numbers are still projected to inject more than $10 billion into the local economy.
At least one jubilee event – a proposed “Gay Day” – has sparked controversy. At the request of a Florence-based group, the Vatican added a special pilgrimage for LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families to the official 2025 calendar. After the event was made public this month, however, it was quickly removed. Fisichella said not enough details had been provided by the group about its plans.
Soon after, the same event reappeared in the same Sept. 6 slot. A person familiar with the back and forth between organizers and the Vatican said the event seemed to have been taken down after articles in Catholic media created internal pressure. It was restored after further details were provided and Vatican “higher ups” offered support.
“The pope’s [inclusive message] and ‘who am I to judge’ work is helping change things around in the church as an institution, regardless of the resistance it meets,” said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment on internal discussions.
In late October, the Vatican introduced a mascot for the holy year – Luce, a blue-haired, manga-inspired young pilgrim “meant to reflect pop culture.” Italian outlets had a field day, and traditionalist blogs were incensed, upon learning that the work of the same designer – Simone Legno – had previously appeared on sex toys and apparel celebrating gay pride.
But the biggest complaints have been about the construction and the crowds. Alessandro Gassmann, a director and actor, said he pulled the mayor aside during the Christmas tree lighting at the Spanish Steps. “I relayed to him what I’ve been hearing from people. … They’re quite [angry]. The traffic, the hundreds of ongoing construction sites.”
As for the coming influx of visitors, he said, “We’re all very concerned.”
Some projects were wrapping up just in time for the jubilee’s start. For instance, after three months of grousing by tourists on social media about the Trevi Fountain being outfitted with an almost comically small pool for coin tosses as it underwent repairs, the refurbished landmark reopened Sunday.
Authorities knew for years that the jubilee was coming – so why, critics ask, did the city not postpone nonessential projects until after it was over?
The mayor said talk of projects being behind schedule is overblown. Some jubilee projects, he said, are converging with others as a result of pandemic-related delays. Patience, he said, will be rewarded with a radical transformation that will forever change one of the world’s most iconic metropolises.
“This will be a different city,” he said.
Despite the griping, Romans have a reputation for being among the most welcoming hosts in Europe, in part because so many jobs in the historic center depend on tourism. “Thank God they’re coming!” said David Sermoneta, 62, a store owner and head of the Piazza di Spagna business association – in a part of Rome lined with shops selling luxury goods.
“Sure, you’ll get pilgrims. But you’ll also get the very rich ones, too,” he said.
For average Romans, nothing has been more vexing than the worsening of a housing crunch – one so bad that the pope has ordered local parishes to shelter Roman families left homeless from jubilee-year rent hikes. Rents in Rome have rocketed in recent years, coinciding with a surge in short-term rentals. There are now about 30,000 short-term listings in the Rome market, up 26 percent since 2021, according to real estate site immobiliare.it.
Jubilee demand, experts say, is worsening that problem – with rents per square foot increasing in October by 10 percent compared with the same month last year. Robert Viviani, a graduate student living in Rome’s Pigneto district, east of the Colosseum, felt that firsthand when his landlord abruptly informed him that he would not renew his lease.
“He was up-front about the reason why – Airbnb,” Viviani said as he joined a group of protesters covering short-rental lockboxes with stickers reading, “Your Airbnb is our eviction.”
“The jubilee was coming, and a company offered him a lot more money to use the apartment for short-term rentals,” Viviani said. “I asked him how much, and he said it was so high that he was too ashamed to tell me.”