In the spirit of this year of Jubilee, the Canadian bishops have called on the Canadian government and private creditors to forgive the debts of debtor nations, particularly those of the Global South.

In its latest pastoral letter, Forgive Us Our Debts: Pastoral Letter on Debit Forgiveness in the Jubilee Year 2025, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops outline the current debt crisis impacting so many developing nations and seeks the development and implementation of “effective frameworks for debt forgiveness in the spirit of the Jubilee Year.”

The letter, released by the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace, highlights Pope Francis’ bull Spes non confundit that announced the Jubilee year that calls on affluent nations to commit to “remedying the remote causes of injustice, settling unjust and unpayable debts and feeding the hungry.”

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“Catholics in Canada once again have an opportunity to raise our voices for debt relief and justice,” the letter says, looking back 25 years to the successful campaign during the Jubilee Year 2000 when debts of poor nations were cancelled.

But 2000’s debt relief, while a major achievement, failed to change the structures that led to the debt crisis, the letter said. That’s left 3.3 billion people living in countries that spend more on debt repayment than they do on either education or health care, according to the UN’s Commission on Trade and Development. This spawns feelings of hopelessness as debt grows year after year.

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“Whole generations feel their future does not belong to them but instead to creditors,” the letter says.

The blessings that Canada has received — among the world’s richer nations with “abundant natural resources, a stable political system, resilient infrastructure and a strong economy” — leaves us with a “moral obligation” to assist those who lack such strengths, citing Luke 12:48: “As to those whom much has been given, much will also be required of us.”

The letter also notes the “ecological debt” owed by richer nations to the Global South, whose land and resources “are exploited for the sake of profit and consumption in the Global North.” It notes the “close relationship between debt and environmental degradation.”

In this Jubilee Year, “we are called to be pilgrims of hope, walking together for justice,” the letter says, pointing to the “Turn Debt into Hope” campaign and its petition hosted by Development and Peace - Caritas Canada calling for “the cancellation of debts, the reform of the international financial system and the creation of a framework on debt within the United Nations.”

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“We pray that during this Jubilee year, Catholics in Canada will raise their voices for the forgiveness of debts and for a more just economic system so that we might become, in the words of Pope Leo XIV, ‘a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always seeks to be close above all to those who are suffering.’ ”

To read the pastoral letter, see cccb.ca.