(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 06.27.2025).- The thematic note ‘Jubilee 2025: remission of the ecological debt’, signed by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, was published on Tuesday 23 June and can be downloaded in 5 languages.
The document explains how financial and ecological debt today represent two sides of the same coin. While developing countries today are saddled with an economic debt that has far-reaching roots and that the pandemic has only aggravated, they are also suffering the most serious consequences of the climate crisis, even though they are not among the main contributors.
But what is meant by ecological debt and what does it really entail? The note points out that the most industrialised economies are the main creators of the climate crisis, not least because of the exploitation of the natural resources of the poorest countries, which, however, lack “the economic and infrastructural resources needed to adapt or react”, thus combining economic crisis with environmental crisis, with inevitable consequences for the human development of the population.
In this perspective, the forgiveness of the financial debt burdening the poorest countries should not be seen as a gesture of solidarity and generosity, but as a gesture of restorative justice. Such an initiative would not be an act of punishment, but a viaticum for building a new alliance between peoples, which has social justice and the care of creation at heart.
In the wake of the Jubilee of Hope and inspired by the words of Pope Leo XIV, the Church, faithful to the principles of Social Doctrine, renews its pastoral commitment to ecological, social and environmental justice. For this reason, the document invites the particular Churches to foster, in the different social contexts, an integral ‘personal and communitarian’ ecological conversion.
Please note that this work has benefited from the joint analysis of CAFOD – The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, The Jesuit Justice and Ecology Network – Africa (JENA) and Deloitte, which led to the publication of the paper “Bridging the North-South Divide: A Shared Responsibility for Economic and Ecological Justice».
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