Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, Pope Francis will open the ceremonial door at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to launch the 2025 Jubilee Year. Jubilee years are declared every quarter century in the Catholic Church since 1300 AD.
Rooted in Old Testament tradition, Pope Francis has declared the focus of this Jubilee year will be debt forgiveness for impoverished nations.
Twenty-five years ago, thanks to millions of people around the world demanding “break the chains of debt,” the 2000 Jubilee year saw $100 billion dollars of debt forgiven for 35 of the poorest countries. Free of the debt, millions of people received access to health care and schooling.
But now, after the Covid-19 pandemic, and with the ongoing climate crisis and unjust international financial systems, too many developing countries find themselves in a new debt disaster, spending too much on servicing their debt and too little on health, nutrition, and education. The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) published a report this past week, “Jubilee 2025: The new global debt crisis and its solutions.” It identifies why, following the historic success of the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign, the world once again faces an acute global debt crisis, and what can be done this time around to advance a fair and functional debt system.
Pope Francis is urging wealthy nations to "acknowledge the gravity of so many of their past decisions and determine to forgive the debts of countries that will never be able to repay them."
Click here to sign the Jubilee campaign petition called Turn Debt into Hope.
The petition has three simple requests of world leaders:
- Stop the debt crisis now by cancelling and remedying unjust and unsustainable debts.
- Prevent debt crises from happening again by reforming the global financial system to prioritize people and the planet.
- Establish a permanent and transparent debt framework within the United Nations.
Image of Turn Debt into Hope banner courtesy of Caritas Internationalis.