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Archbishop Oscar Andres Rodriguez of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, calls for international debt relief during the Jubilee 2000 rally in Washington April 9, 2000.
CNS photo by Martin Lueders
February 17, 2025
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Photo courtesy Holy Family Parish, Whitby
As the Global South struggles with a devastating debt crisis, Kairos Canada’s Jubilee 2025 campaign is calling for creditors to turn debt into hope through systemic financial reform and overall debt cancellation.
The campaign, in collaboration with Citizens for Public Justice, Caritas Canada, the Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology and the Canadian Council of Churches, calls for the debt cancellation of unjust and unsustainable debts in the South, global financial reform to prevent future crises and a transparent, binding and fair debt resolution framework within the United Nations.
Kairos Canada has launched a petition for change and is seeking 100,000 signatures in Canada as part of a 10-million signature campaign worldwide by the end of the year.
While the campaign fits the organization’s mandate of taking faithful action for justice and peace in areas such as Indigenous rights, migrant and gender justice and solidarity with global partners, the Turn Debt into Hope campaign shows clear continuity with Jubilee 2000, a movement that saw $100 billion in debt cancelled for more than 35 low-income nations during the last Jubilee year in 2000.
Echoed by Pope John Paul II more than 25 years ago, Kairos believes that debt cancellation is not a sole economic solution, but rather a moral imperative with theological implications.
“What we realized is that the Biblical essence of the Jubilee is a broad mandate for justice, a reset and restitution,” said Shannon Neufeldt, Kairos’ member relations and network coordinator.
In 1999, Pope John Paul II said in a message to the Jubilee 2000 Debt Campaign: “Debt relief is, however, urgent. It is, in many ways, a precondition for the poorest countries to make progress in their fight against poverty. This is something which is now widely recognized and credit is due to all those who have contributed to this change in direction.
“I appeal to all those involved, especially the most powerful nations, not to let this opportunity of the Jubilee year pass without taking a decisive step towards definitively resolving the debt crisis,” his message continued.
Despite the impressive work done at the turn of the millennium, the Global South is once again struggling as many nations find themselves spending more on debt repayments than on health care and education.
Development and Peace-Caritas Canada is highlighting Pope Francis’ comments following his Dec. 26 Angelus address where he called on the faithful to support the international Turn Debt into Hope campaign.
“One of the actions that characterizes Jubilees is the forgiving of debts. I therefore encourage everyone to support the Caritas Internationalis campaign entitled Turn Debt into Hope, to relieve countries oppressed by unsustainable debts and to promote development,” Pope Francis said.
The World Institute for Development Economics Research reported in December 2024 that upwards of $3 trillion (U.S., roughly $4.2 trillion CAD) annually is needed to put Global South countries on a sustainable growth path.
To combat this seemingly insurmountable credit, Kairos points to one of its three campaign requests, addressing the root causes of debt, to allow for more of a lasting difference this year as opposed to in 2000.
“If we go back to 2000, (the Global South nations) were already asking for financial reform and I think there was more success on straight debt cancellation than there was on reforming the systems,” said Neufeldt.
“There are, of course, going to be loans and financing, but if the United Nations held a permanent, transparent and binding debt framework, then there would be recourse in terms of when interest rates are unreasonable or when the debt was incurred in an unjust situation.”
The argument that debt cancellation for countries may lead to lowered credit ratings and disincentivizing responsible borrowing practices can certainly be made. However, Neufeldt points to the human side of the issue, that countries buried in debt are often unable to provide sufficient health care, education and climate mitigation for their people as a more significant aspect.
More specifically, she references a quote from Thomas Sankara, the former prime minister of Burkina Faso: “If we do not pay, our creditors will not die. We can be sure of that. On the other hand, if we pay, it is we who will die. Of that, we can be equally sure.”
Kairos Canada’s online petition hosts the same demands as the global petition and is a call to public, private and multilateral creditors along with political leaders.
The campaign plans to showcase the public’s support in many different places such as the G7 Summit, Civil Society 7, United Nations Financing for Development, G20, UNFCCC COP30 and in visits to Canadian parliamentarians.
Kairos Canada will also host an informative launch webinar for the campaign on Feb. 19 with Global South and Indigenous partners, including Rev. Tony Snow and Biblical scholar Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat set to speak.
To register for the webinar, visit kairoscanada.org.
A version of this story appeared in the February 23, 2025, issue of The Catholic Registerwith the headline "Jubilee call goes out for debt cancellation".
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