73198.html Pope John Paul II Promotes Jubilee Debt Forgiveness Addressing the leaders of the Jubilee 2000 Debt Campaign in September, Pope John Paul II called on the church to make the celebration of the Jubilee practically effective in the lives of the poor by finding concrete ways of expressing in the world economy the sort of forgiveness we celebrate in the liturgy. So many men, women, and children are unable to realize their God-given potential. The Catholic Church looks at the situation with great concern, not because she has any concrete technical model of development to offer, but because she has a moral vision of what the good of individuals and of the human family demands . . . Debt relief is, of course, only one aspect of the vaster task of fighting poverty and of ensuring that the citizens of the poorest countries can have a fuller share at the banquet of life . . .
Debt relief is, however, urgent.
It is, in many ways, a precondition for the poorest countries to make progress in their fight against poverty. This is something which is now widely recognized . . . We have to ask, however, why progress in resolving the debt problem is still so slow. It is the poor who pay the cost of indecision and delay.