In the message for January 1, 2025 that was broadcast today, Francis reiterates the call that John Paul II already made in 2000, inviting us to associate him with the development of “a new World Financial Charter, founded on solidarity and harmony between peoples”. The text also calls for other actions regarding large social debts: the elimination of the death penalty and allocating at least part of spending on weapons to the fight against hunger and for development.
Vatican City () – May “the richest countries feel called to do everything possible to forgive the debts of those countries that are not in a position to repay what they owe.” In the spirit of the Jubilee Year that is about to begin, Pope Francis once again makes this request to the world in his message for the World Day of Peace 2025, which was released today by the Vatican. In the text – titled “Forgive us our trespasses, grant us your peace“- the pontiff invites us to share the biblical root of the Holy Year, remembering that “the sound of a ram’s horn – in Hebrew yobel – announced, every forty-nine years, one of clemency and liberation for all the people”, to “to reestablish the justice of God in the different areas of life: in the use of the land, in the possession of goods, in the relationship with one’s neighbor, especially with respect to the poorest and those who had fallen from grace.”
Considering the Jubilee in this way means remembering that there is much to repair in today’s world as well. “Each one of us – Francis writes – must feel responsible in some way for the devastation to which our common home is subjected, starting with those actions that, even if only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that are plaguing humanity.” He then suggests looking “at disparities of all kinds, at the inhumane treatment given to migrants, at environmental degradation, at the confusion culpablely generated by misinformation, at the rejection of all forms of dialogue, at large investments in military industry. They are all factors of a concrete threat to the existence of humanity as a whole.”
These challenges ask to “break the chains of injustice to proclaim the justice of God. Doing some sporadic act of philanthropy is not enough – comments the Pope -. On the contrary, cultural and structural changes are needed, so that lasting change also occurs.”
It is a conversion that arises from the recognition that we are all debtors. In this sense, the pontiff proposes to reread the words of a great father of the Church such as Saint Basil of Caesarea: “What thing, tell me, belongs to you? Where have you taken it to put it in your life? […] Did you not come out naked from your mother’s womb? Will you not return naked to the earth again? The present goods, where do they come from? If you speak of chance, you are impious, because you do not recognize the Creator, nor give thanks to Him who has given you.
Along these lines, Pope Francis in the jubilee year – in deep continuity with what John Paul II had already requested in the year 2000 – indicates three actions in particular.
The first is –precisely– to forgive poor countries the debts they can no longer pay. “I never tire of repeating – writes Bergoglio – that foreign debt has become an instrument of control, through which some governments and private financial institutions of the richest countries have no qualms about indiscriminately exploiting human and financial resources. of the poorest countries, in order to satisfy the demands of their own markets”.
On the other hand, it is a burden that today falls on the shoulders of the same countries that most have to face the consequences of climate change caused by lack of respect for the environment. “The ecological debt and the external debt are two sides of the same coin – continues the Pope – of this logic of exploitation that culminates in the debt crisis. [12]. Thinking about this Jubilee Year, I invite the international community to undertake actions to remit the external debt, recognizing the existence of an ecological debt between the north and the south of the world. “It is a call to solidarity, but above all to justice.”
However, precisely the experience of the Jubilee of the year 2000, when several governments responded to the invitation of John Paul II, shows that it is not enough to forgive a debt. “So that this is not an isolated act of charity – he explains – that leads to the risk of once again triggering a vicious cycle of financing-debt, it is necessary, at the same time, to develop a new financial architecture, which leads to the creation of a global financial document, founded on solidarity and harmony between peoples”.
Along with the economic debt, there are also other social debts that must be “paid.” And the other two actions suggested by Francis for the jubilee year are oriented in this sense. With a view to “a firm commitment to promote respect for the dignity of human life, from conception to natural death,” the Pope calls for “the elimination of the death penalty in all nations. This measure, in effect, “In addition to compromising the inviolability of life, it destroys all human hope for forgiveness and renewal.”
Finally – as a third action – he reiterated the request that “at least a fixed percentage of the money used in armaments be used for the constitution of a World Fund that definitively eliminates hunger and facilitates educational activities in the poorest countries also aimed at promote sustainable development, counteracting climate change”.
“May 2025 be a year in which peace grows – the message ends by saying -. That real and lasting peace, which does not stop at the objections of contracts or at the tables of human commitments [22]. Let us seek true peace, which is given by God to an unarmed heart: a heart that does not insist on calculating what is mine and what is yours; a heart that dissipates selfishness in the readiness to go out to meet others; a heart that does not hesitate to recognize itself as a debtor to God and that is why it is willing to forgive the debts that oppress its neighbor; a heart that overcomes discouragement about the future with the hope that every person is a good for this world.”
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