Debt Cancel for Jubilee 2025
Pope Francis has said that it would be fitting to celebrate the Jubilee Year in 2025 by cancelling all or most of the debts of world’s poorest countries. It appears in his papal bull for the Jubilee Year and in a talk he gave a few weeks ago to a seminar organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the debt crisis and the global south. He said then, we need “a new international financial architecture that is courageous and creative” and which, precisely in view of the Jubilee Year, can lead to a cancellation or reduction of the foreign debt of the poorest countries. He noted that debt cancellation during a Jubilee Year is a biblical tradition.
Last month, representatives from Christian Churches, Muslim community, national councils of Churches and interreligious councils across 13 countries in Africa, meeting in Rwanda, addressed a joint statement to world leaders calling for debt relief for Africa in view of the 2025 Jubilee. Echoing the Jubilee 2000 campaign 25 years ago, they said that debt servicing is again making it impossible for poorer nations to spend more money on health, education and social services. The Jubilee 2000 initiative led to the cancellation of more than $100 billion of debt owed by 35 of the world’s poorest countries.
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