Marian year
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marian years are decided on and declared exclusively by the Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. In Church history, only two Marian years were pronounced by Pope Pius XII and Pope John II.
In 1953, with the encyclical Fulgens Corona, Pope Pius ordered a Marian year for 1954, the first in Church history. The year was filled with Marian initiatives, in the areas of mariology, cultural events, and charity and social gatherings [1] In 1987, Pope John Paul initiated a Marian year in preparation of the forthcoming millennium. He published the encyclopedic Marian encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which constitutes the longest Marian encyclical ever written by a Pontiff. It represents the status of Marian belief and Mariology for the beginning of the 21st century. For the beginning of the Marian year, a large copy of the Madonna della Colonna was completed for outside St Peter's Square. Pope John Paul II had been approached by a student who told him that St Peter's Square was cold and incomplete without the portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [2] In both Marian years, Marian devotion, Marian pilgrimages and Marian meetings were promulgated.
