VATICAN CITY (RNS) — In the year 2000, then-Pope John Paul II appealed to leaders of wealthy nations, asking them to forgive the debt of poorer countries in the spirit of the Catholic Church’s Jubilee year — a time the church sets aside for forgiveness of sins and debt. Meeting prisoners in Rome, John Paul asked that the death penalty, which he called “an unworthy punishment still used in some countries, be abolished throughout the world.”
Twenty-five years later, the church is preparing to celebrate another Jubilee in 2025, but the goals laid out by John Paul continue to seem as distant as ever — nearly 30,000 people are currently on death row around the world, and according to the International Monetary Fund, at least half of developing countries are facing a debt crisis or are on the verge.
Anticipating the World Day of Peace on Jan. 1, Pope Francis renewed John Paul’s appeals earlier this month, asking for the forgiveness of foreign debt, elimination of the death penalty and creation of a fund aimed at eradicating world hunger using money allocated for armaments.
“I urge the international community to work towards forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world,” Pope Francis wrote in a Dec. 8 statement. “This is an appeal fo …