Pope Francis Addresses the World in a Jubilee Year
His World Day of Peace Message and Address to the Diplomatic Corps
Every year in the depths of winter (at least in the northern hemisphere), the pope issues two important messages that offer a pastoral and moral perspective on important issues facing the world. The first is the annual World Day of Peace message, a written document commemorating the World Day of Peace on January 1 but usually issued a few days before in December. This practice was initiated by Pope St. Paul VI in 1968. The World Day of Peace message is focused on how Catholics and all people of good will can promote peace in the world and usually centers on a particular theme like dialogue or migration. The second is the pope’s annual address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, that is, a short speech given to all the diplomats from other countries who are stationed in the Vatican. These addresses, which also appear to have begun with Paul VI, touch on specific crises facing the world, such as wars and humanitarian disasters, to which the pope wishes to direct the attention of the nations of the world.
Pope Francis tied both his recent World Day of Peace message and address to the Holy See diplomatic corps to the 2025 Jubilee, which began on December 24. Ordinarily a Jubilee year is celebrated by the Catholic Church every twenty-five years, although a pope can declare what is called an Extraordinary Jubilee during any year, as Pope Francis did in 2015-16. Rooted in the Old Testament practice of the Jubilee, a year in which debts were forgiven and slaves were set free from servitude, Jubilee years typically focus on reconciliation and divine mercy, although this year’s Jubilee has the additional theme of hope. In both his World Day of Peace message and address to the diplomatic corps, Francis called for the forgiveness of debt and freedom from all forms of servitude in a call to action that he explicitly linked to the Jubilee year.
In his 2009 book Sin: A History, biblical scholar Gary Anderson argues that, as they evolved over time, the biblical notions of sin and forgiveness came to be expressed through economic metaphors, and indeed, in both the Old and New Testaments, sin and forgiveness understood as moral concepts are closely intertwined with economic realities like debt, wages, and almsgiving. Anderson argues that there are echoes of this economic understanding of sin in various church practices that have persisted for centuries, like the practice of penance, but the linkage between sin, forgiveness, and economic practices has been obscured.
In this year’s World Day of Peace message, which is focused on the theme of forgiveness, Pope Francis appeals to this biblical linkage of the spiritual and the economic. Francis notes that, “[I]n his infinite mercy the Lord does not abandon sinful humanity, but instead reaffirms his gift of life by the saving forgiveness offered to all through Jesus Christ (#5, emphasis in original). We are likewise called to forgive one another, which is a prerequisite for peace in the world. When we fail to recognize our indebtedness to God with gratitude, “we begin to cherish the illusion that our relationships with others can be governed by a logic of exploitation and oppression” (#6), a mentality we find not just in our personal relationships but also in our social institutions.
Francis points to the international debt crisis, in which poorer nations in the Global South are indebted to wealthier nations and powerful private lenders under terms that make it impossible for the debtor nations to repay their loans, as a striking example of how this logic of exploitation and oppression is manifest in our world. He also criticizes what he refers to as “ecological debt,” presumably referring to the notion that the wealthier nations who have contributed the most to climate change and other forms of environmental degradation like pollution owe a debt to the poorer nations for the harm caused, which largely, although not exclusively, falls on those poorer societies.
Francis therefore calls on the world’s wealthier nations to make a concerted effort to reduce, or completely forgive, the debts of those nations hopelessly burdened by debt. In the spirit of the Jubilee, he also submits two other proposals to the world. First, he calls for “a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death” (#11), including an end to the death penalty. Second, he proposes that a fixed percentage of the money currently used for arms purchases instead be used to end hunger and promote sustainable development in the Global South.
He concludes by suggesting that fulfilling these three proposals would help bring about peace: “When I divest myself of the weapon of credit and restore the path of hope to one of my brothers or sisters, I contribute to the restoration of God’s justice on this earth and, with that person, I advance towards the goal of peace” (#12).
One noteworthy thing about Francis’s World Day of Peace message is the extent to which it refers back to Francis’s predecessor Pope John Paul II. Most obviously, Francis’s call for the forgiveness of international debt harkens back to John Paul’s similar appeal during the 2000 Jubilee year, and indeed Francis cites John Paul’s efforts. John Paul’s appeal for debt relief contributed to efforts that had begun in the 1990s, coalescing in the Jubilee 2000 international campaign that led to the forgiveness of over $100 billion in international debt and brought the issue to the public’s consciousness worldwide.
Despite the success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, and the emergence of movements focused on global health and sustainable development that grew from it, the debt crisis remains a persistent problem, as Pope Francis’s appeal makes clear. There was a new surge in international lending in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent high interest rates experienced worldwide have significantly burdened poorer debtor nations. China is now also a major international lender and has been less forgiving than Western nations and international institutions like the International Monetary Fund when it comes to renegotiating the terms of loans.
A second way Francis’s message draws on the legacy of Pope John Paul II is its use of the latter’s concept of “structures of sin,” which John Paul developed in his 1987 social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, although first introduced in the earlier apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia. John Paul introduced the term, which was first developed by Latin American liberation theologians, into magisterial teaching to show that the notion of “sin” is not limited to our personal sins. Rather, our personal sins and failure to address evils in our midst can build up over time, creating institutions or broad patterns of social behavior that are themselves sinful, in an analogous way, because they generate injustice or suffering.
For his part, Francis states that the Jubilee year should inspire us to cry out in response to the many ways people and the earth are exploited, and he adds, “These injustices can appear at times in the form of what Saint John Paul II called ‘structures of sin’, that arise not only from injustice on the part of some but are also consolidated and maintained by a network of complicity” (3). It is because we are bound together in these “networks of complicity” that we have a responsibility to work toward the three proposals outlined in the message.
Francis’s use of the concept of “structures of sin” is also noteworthy because, as I noted several years ago, the term (or similar terms like “structural sin” or “social sin”) does not appear in Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’, despite the fact that the encyclical deals with obvious examples of structures of sin, including our contributions to global climate change, our harmful attitudes regarding technology, and the pervasiveness of various kinds of pollution. I argued, however, that the term’s absence from the encyclical should not be understood as a rejection of the concept, but rather is explained by the fact that, in Laudato Si’, Francis preferred to use more organic metaphors to describe these social and environmental problems precisely because one goal of the document was to emphasize the interconnectedness of human society with the natural world. Francis’s use of the term in this more recent document shows that it is part of his vocabulary and integral to his thinking about social problems.
Francis gave his address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See on January 9, and in it he likewise referred his audience to the Jubilee year. In this case, he appeals to the theme of hope, calling for a “diplomacy of hope,” but he also cites the well-known passage from Isaiah that scholars tell us is a reference to the Jubilee and which Jesus recites at the inauguration of his ministry: “[God] has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Is. 61:1-2, cited in Lk. 4:16-21). This latter verse in fact structures his address.
In continuity with his World Day of Peace message, in his address to the diplomatic corps, Francis explains that one of the characteristics of a diplomacy of hope is that it is also a diplomacy of forgiveness. Here he emphasizes the importance of forgiveness for bringing peace to armed conflicts, but also to political and social conflicts. In this regard, he repeats his call for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, but he also calls for a peaceful end to various conflicts in Africa, including those in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He also laments the lack of respect for international humanitarian law, including the bombing of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure necessary for survival, and states that a shared sense of humanity is necessary for peace. He likewise calls for reconciliation in situations of social strife in the Americas, particularly in Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Francis returns to the theme of forgiving international debt and rectifying the ecological debt in this address, but here as an example of what he terms a “diplomacy of justice.” He notes: “The Jubilee year is a favorable time to practice justice, to forgive debts and to commute the sentences of prisoners.” He likewise again links this call for forgiveness to our indebtedness to God: “Nor can we forget that, in some sense, we are all prisoners, for all of us are debtors: to God, to others, and also to our beloved earth, from which we draw our daily sustenance.”
A diplomacy of hope, according to Francis, is also a “diplomacy of freedom.” He calls on the nations of the world to combat the forms of slavery that exist today, particularly human trafficking and exploitative forms of labor. He also points out that drug addiction is a form of slavery, fueled today by drug trafficking and the development of new synthetic forms of drugs.
Perhaps the most interesting section of the address is where he describes the “diplomacy of truth.” Here Francis laments the spread of misinformation via social media and other forms of communication technology. He explains that we are living through a crisis of truth:
Human beings . . . are endowed with an innate thirst for truth. That is a fundamental aspect of our human condition, as every person carries deep within a longing for objective truth and an irrepressible desire for knowledge. While this has always been the case, in our time the denial of self-evident truths seems to have gained the upper hand. Some distrust rational argumentation, believing it to be a tool in the hands of some unseen power, while others believe that they unequivocally possess a truth of their own making, and are thus exempt from discussion and dialogue with those who think differently. Others tend to invent their own “truth”, disregarding the objectivity of reality.
Earlier in the address, he notes that this crisis of truth contributes to social instability: “This phenomenon generates false images of reality, a climate of suspicion that foments hate, undermines people’s sense of security and compromises civil coexistence and the stability of entire nations.” Significantly, he points to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last July, as well as the attempt on the life of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico in May, as fruits of this social unraveling.
Francis also points to the manipulation of language as illustrating this crisis of truth, particularly in the interpretation of international legal agreements. He states:
[T]he attempt to manipulate multilateral documents – by changing the meaning of terms or unilaterally reinterpreting the content of human rights treaties – in order to advance divisive ideologies that trample on the values and beliefs of peoples is particularly worrying.
As an example, Francis cites interpretations of international agreements that impose a right to abortion when no such right is included in the language of the document and was not intended by its signatories. He adds that this practice “represents a form of genuine ideological colonization that attempts, in accordance with carefully planned agendas, to uproot the traditions, history and religious bonds of peoples,” and likewise “tolerates no differences and focuses on individual rights, to the detriment of duties towards others, especially the weakest and most vulnerable.” Here, in this address as well, Francis echoes his predecessor John Paul II, but also Benedict XVI, who both raised similar concerns about the place of abortion in international law protecting human rights.
Pope Francis has woven the key themes of the 2025 Jubilee into two decades-old papal traditions: the annual World Day of Peace message and the address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. In both addresses, he points to the need for forgiveness and justice in the world, not just in our personal relationships, but in the relations among nations. He also calls on all of us to act with hope and provides concrete proposals for the actions necessary to bring good news to the oppressed.