2025 World Day of Peace: Pope urges debt forgiveness for poor countries
In the message released today for 1 January 2025, Francis renews the appeal that John Paul II made in 2000, for “a global financial Charter based on solidarity and harmony between peoples.” The pontiff calls for more action on poor countries’ debt and the death penalty, urges some of the money spent on weapons go to development and the fight against hunger.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – In the spirit of the Jubilee Year that is about to begin, Pope Francis returns to the theme of his message for the 2025 World Day of Peace, released today by the Vatican. In it the pontiff urges “the more prosperous countries [. . .] to do everything possible to forgive the debts of those countries that are in no condition to repay the amount they owe.”
In the message, titled Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace, the pope calls on the faithful to start again from the biblical root of the Holy Year, which echoes an ancient Jewish practice. “[T]he sound of a ram’s horn (in Hebrew, jobel) would proclaim a year of forgiveness and freedom for the entire people” so as “to restore God’s justice in every aspect of life: in the use of the land, in the possession of goods and in relationships with others, above all the poor and the dispossessed.”
Looking at the Jubilee this way means remembering that there is much to fix in today's world as well. “Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family.”
He points to “all manner of disparities, the inhuman treatment meted out to migrants, environmental decay, the confusion willfully created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue and the immense resources spent on the industry of war. All these, taken together, represent a threat to the existence of humanity as a whole.”
For Francis, these challenges need action “to break the bonds of injustice and to proclaim God’s justice. Sporadic acts of philanthropy are not enough.” Indeed, “Cultural and structural changes are necessary, so that enduring change may come about.”
This conversion comes from recognising that we are all debtors. In this sense, the pontiff invites the faithful to reread some of the words of a great Father of the Church, Saint Basil of Caesarea.
“We do well to recall” the latter’s words: “Tell me, what things belong to you? Where did you find them to make them part of your life? … Did you not come forth naked from the womb of your mother? Will you not return naked to the ground? Where did your property come from? If you say that it comes to you naturally by luck, you would deny God by not recognizing the Creator and being grateful to the Giver”.
Pope Francis points to three actions to undertake in the coming Jubilee Year, which John Paul II had already asked for in the year 2000.
The first is to forgive poor countries the debts they are no longer able to repay. “I have repeatedly stated that foreign debt has become a means of control whereby certain governments and private financial institutions of the richer countries unscrupulously and indiscriminately exploit the human and natural resources of poorer countries, simply to satisfy the demands of their own markets.”
Among other things, this burden today weighs on the shoulders of the countries that find themselves most affected by climate change caused by the failure to respect the environment.
“Foreign debt and ecological debt are two sides of the same coin, namely the mindset of exploitation that has culminated in the debt crisis. In the spirit of this Jubilee Year, I urge the international community to work towards forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world. This is an appeal for solidarity, but above all for justice.”
The experience of the Jubilee of the Year 2000, when various governments heeded John Paul II's invitation, tells us, however, that simply forgiving a debt alone is not enough.
“Naturally, lest this prove merely an isolated act of charity that simply reboots the vicious cycle of financing and indebtedness, a new financial framework must be devised, leading to the creation of a global financial Charter based on solidarity and harmony between peoples.”
Alongside economic debts, other social debts must be "forgiven". This is what the other two actions suggested by Francis for the Jubilee Year are needed for.
With eyes set on “a firm commitment to respect [. . .] the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the pontiff calls for “the elimination of the death penalty in all nations. This penalty not only compromises the inviolability of life but eliminates every human hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation.”
As a third action, he renews his call to “use at least a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments to establish a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change.”
The pope ends his message saying: “May 2025 be a year in which peace flourishes! [. . .] May we seek the true peace that is granted by God to hearts disarmed”. May we have “hearts not set on calculating what is mine and what is yours; hearts that turn selfishness into readiness to reach out to others; hearts that see themselves as indebted to God and thus prepared to forgive the debts that oppress others; hearts that replace anxiety about the future with the hope that every individual can be a resource for the building of a better world.”
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