Vatican City – The Prefecture of the Papal Household released today the updated picture of the participation of the faithful at audiences and major liturgical celebrations in Vatican City State in 2025. What emerges is a clear snapshot, recording a fact that is by now difficult to ignore, despite the efforts of part of the media to play down the significance of this new pontificate: under Leo XIV, attendance shows a marked and significant increase.
The figures released by the Prefecture
The 2025 table distinguishes four categories: General and Jubilee Audiences, Special Audiences, Liturgical Celebrations, Angelus. In the section attributed to Pope Francis, 8 General and Jubilee Audiences are recorded, with a total of 262,820 participants.
For Pope Leo XIV, the Prefecture reports 36 General and Jubilee Audiences and an overall total of 2,913,800 participants, broken down as follows:
General and Jubilee Audiences: 1,069,000
Special Audiences: 148,300
Liturgical Celebrations: 796,500
Angelus: 900,000
On a monthly basis, the trend shows significant peaks: October records 295,000 participants at general/jubilee audiences and 54,000 at special audiences; December registers 250,000 participants at the Angelus, in addition to 77,000 at the audiences and 30,000 at the liturgical celebrations.
“Start-of-pontificate effect” and calendar dynamics
Read against the light, the surge in attendance fits into a predictable dynamic: the beginning of a new pontificate almost always generates a pull effect. Media interest, pilgrims’ curiosity, the desire to “be there” in the first months, and the impetus of communities and organised groups combine and multiply participation, especially in St Peter’s Square and in the most visible celebrations. Added to this is a structural factor: the Jubilee, now moving towards its conclusion, which affects both the number of events and the mobilisation of pilgrimages and coordinated presences. “Jubilee audiences” have a greater attractive capacity than in an ordinary year.
The data, however eloquent, require careful analysis. The table in fact compares different periods: for Pope Francis it mainly includes January and February (with a reference to April for the Angelus), whereas for Leo XIV the survey covers May–December. Moreover, the number of events counted differs: 8 general/jubilee audiences for Francis, 36for Leo XIV. Such a substantial increase therefore combines at least three elements: more events, a greater number of months, and an ecclesial context shaped by the Jubilee. One fixed point remains: the Prefecture certifies an intensification of attendance during the period of Leo XIV, especially at audiences and Angelus, which alone total 900,000 participants.
Participation, expectation, responsibility
For the Holy See, these figures are not merely attendance statistics. They tell of a desire for encounter, a search for orientation, an expectation that naturally gathers, in an ecclesial way, around the Successor of Peter. The “novelty effect” explains part of the dynamic; the Jubilee inevitably increases the flow of pilgrims. Yet there remains a datum that cannot be filed away under sociological categories: the People of God seek the word of the Pope because they are thirsty for Jesus Christ. From the very first steps of his ministry, Leo XIV has redirected the gaze to the centre, rejecting any substitution: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he recalled, pointing to Jesus as “the only Saviour” and “the revealer of the Father’s face.” It is on this priority that the quality of Christian presence in the present time is measured—a time marked, as he himself has observed, by contexts in which Christ is judged irrelevant or reduced to an accessory figure: a “curious character” for the world of power, a “righteous man” for ordinary people, appreciated only so long as he does not demand conversion. In the first Holy Mass with the Sacred College, Leo offered words that also clarify the deeper meaning of so many crowded squares: the Pope does not gather people around himself; he gathers them around Christ. “Therefore, for us too, it is essential to repeat: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’,” he insisted, linking the profession of faith to the personal journey of conversion and to the ecclesial mission. And at the moment when he accepted the call to succeed Peter, he articulated what is almost a spiritual programme revealing the heart of this pontificate: “to disappear so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that He may be known and glorified.”
In this perspective, the figures released today are not read merely as an increase in participation. They become the sign of a Church which, as the Jubilee enters its final phase, once again manifests its truest question: not attraction to an event, but the search for the Lord; not adherence to a climate or an ideological scheme, but the desire for a word that leads to the Essential. And the Essential - Leo XIV repeats it without ambiguity - has a name: Jesus Christ.
fr.E.D.
Silere non possum