Caritas Internationalis to Host Global Townhall on Debt Crisis

Vatican City, May 27, 2025: Caritas Internationalis, in partnership with the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, is set to host a major virtual townhall on May 28 to address what it calls a “current yet silent global crisis”: the crippling debt burden faced by billions across the Global South.

The online event, titled “Pilgrims of Hope: A Jubilee inspiration for action on debt, climate and development,” will bring together high-ranking Vatican officials, economists, and civil society leaders to debate how to end the global debt crisis which continues to keep billions of people in poverty.

Turn debt into hope

This webinar is organized within Caritas Internationalis’ worldwide campaign, “Turn Debt into Hope”, which was launched on December 23, 2024. In the context of the Jubilee Year of Hope, religious leaders and policy experts will reflect on how the Holy Year “provides a vision for ending the global debt crisis.”

The campaign’s goal is to bring attention to the “current yet silent global debt crisis - a crisis that is ultimately one of development, not merely finance" as more than 3.3 billion people live in countries where governments spend more on repaying their debts than on basic public services like education and healthcare.

Moreover, this virtual townhall coincides with the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’ Laudato si’ and the late Pontiff’s appeal on the 2025 World Day of Peace for relief to be given to the most heavily indebted countries around the world—“not“ as an act of generosity but as one of justice."

What’s on the table for discussion?

Panelists include Professor Martin Guzmán of the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University; Sister Alessandra Smerilli, Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; and Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.

Discussions will focus on the steps to be taken to relieve debt burdens and reform the global financial system in the context of the Jubilee Year.

The panelists will reflect on Pope Francis’ teaching on the need to place financial systems at the service of human rights and the environment - rather than the other way around - as well as an upcoming report from a Vatican-commissioned group of experts on debt convened by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) and Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), under the chairmanship of Professor Joseph Stiglitz.

By Kielce Gussie

Courtesy: Vatican News