…As developing countries battle global debt burden
Caritas Internationalis, the charitable arm of the Catholic Church, has called for a rebalancing of the global debt structure to reduce economic burden on developing countries, highlighting the social imbalance in the world.
According to Caritas, about 3.3 billion people accounting for nearly half of the world’s population live in countries that spend more money on debt than on healthcare or education.
Alastair Dutton, Caritas’ Secretary-General, stated that the fact that so many countries spend more on servicing their debt than on healthcare and education shows that, in today’s economy, human beings are secondary “to economic interest.”
He stated this during the online town hall organised by Caritas to discuss debt reform on Wednesday. The webinar brought together humanitarian workers, internationally-recognised economists, and senior Vatican officials, to discuss debt, climate, and development.
Dutton stated that the Caritas’ Turn Debt Into Hope campaign, calls for the forgiveness of unjust debt, and highlighted that the subject of debt reform has already been raised by Pope Leo, weeks into his pontificate.
According to Dutton, the topic is crucial to the Catholic Church, following Pope Francis’ 2024 call for a multinational mechanism to manage debt between countries, to avoid an “every man for himself” mentality in which “it is always the weakest” who lose out.
Alfonso Apicella, Caritas officer, stated that the campaign aims to build public pressure around unfair debt practices, particularly in view of the Catholic Church’s ongoing 2025 Jubilee Year, a period traditionally associated with financial clemency. “There are 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, and we want to show that they have agency.”
Martin Guzmán, a professor from Columbia University, and former Argentinian minister of Economy, highlighted the devastating effects of the global debt system on the world’s poorest countries, which, he said, are charged higher interest rates than their richer peers.
He also discussed the work of the Vatican’s Jubilee Commission of Experts, chaired by the Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, which is producing a report on debt and development crises in the Global South.
Alessandra Smerilli, secretary, Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, highlighted Pope Francis’ notion of the ‘ecological debt’ owed by rich countries towards the poorer countries, which are suffering the effects of a climate crisis even when they have contributed much less to its cause.
Gabriele Caccia, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, also noted that the concept of ecological debt was highlighted by Pope Francis in his Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee Year.
He stressed the importance of clearly communicating the impact of the debt system on poor countries. “It’s not just a technical matter of economics, but a clear hindrance to integral human development,” Caccia stated.
