THE Pope has called for new multilateral initiatives in 2025 to counter “injustice and inequality”, accompanied by a greater readiness for personal and institutional change.
“Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family,” Pope Francis said in a message for World Peace Day on 1 January, which marks the start of the Roman Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year.
“I think, in particular, of all manner of disparities, the inhuman treatment meted out to migrants, environmental decay, the confusion wilfully created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue and the immense resources spent on the industry of war. All these, taken together, represent a threat to the existence of humanity.”
The 2800-word text says that a “year of forgiveness and freedom” was declared every half-century by ancient Jewish communities to “restore God’s justice” in relationships, and to remind rich and poor that “the goods of the earth are meant not for a privileged few” and that “no one comes into this world doomed to oppression.”
The messages recall Pope St John Paul II’s warnings against “structures of sin”, consolidated by a “network of complicity”, which cannot be corrected by mere “sporadic acts” of philanthropy.
“We for our part feel bound to cry out and denounce the many situations in which the earth is exploited and our neighbours oppressed,” Pope Francis writes. “Like the elites at the time of Jesus, who profited from the suffering of the poor, so today, in our interconnected global village, the international system, unless inspired by a spirit of solidarity and interdependence, gives rise to injustices, aggravated by corruption, which leave poorer countries trapped.”
The message follows a year of continuing bloody conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza, accompanied by widespread dissatisfaction over the outcome of the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP29, in Baku, and other international initiatives.
It develops the themes set out in the Pope’s latest encyclical, Dilexit nos (“He loved us”), calling for a rediscovery of love and compassion in today’s “heartless” world, which was published in October at the close of the RC Church’s three-year “Synod on Synodality” (News, 1 November).
Presenting the message in Rome, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Michael Czerny, said that Pope Francis was concerned to integrate the biblical meaning of sin and debt, while urging “forgiveness, justice and solidarity as pathways to hope and peace”.
Speaking at the launch, a former Italian landmine producer now advocating for peace, Vito Alfieri Fontana, said that the arms trade thrived on “the illusion of quick solutions, perpetuating conflicts for profit”, adding that the Pope believed that those responsible for “tearing communities apart” now had a moral responsibility “to repair the damage and support recovery”.
The Pope says that “foreign debt and ecological debt” both form part of a “mindset of exploitation”, by which rich governments and financial institutions exploit poorer countries to “satisfy the demands of their own markets”.
The RC Church’s Jubilee Year, he says, can bring peace closer by promoting the forgiveness for sin and debt contained in the Lord’s Prayer, and an end to “quibbling over the details of agreements and human compromises”.
Among proposed projects, the Pope calls for the reduction or cancellation of debts which threaten “the future of many nations”, and the creation of a “global financial charter based on solidarity and harmony between peoples” to prevent this from becoming just “an isolated act of charity that simply reboots the vicious cycle of financing and indebtedness”.
The Pope also urges a new global fund to eradicate hunger and foster education, supported by “a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments”, and a “firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death”, to encourage young people to “look forward to bringing new lives into the world”.
He writes: “We need to work at eliminating every pretext that encourages young people to regard their future as hopeless or dominated by the thirst to avenge the blood of their dear ones.
“Hope overflows in generosity; it is free of calculation, makes no hidden demands, is unconcerned with gain, but aims at one thing alone: to raise up those who have fallen, to heal hearts that are broken and to set us free from every kind of bondage.”