MESSAGE
OF HIS HOLINESS POPE
FRANCIS
FOR THE LVIII
WORLD DAY OF PEACE
1st JANUARY 2025

Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/20241208-messaggio-58giornatamondiale-pace2025.html

I. Lis­ten­ing to the plea of an endan­gered humanity

1. At the dawn of this New Year giv­en to us by our heav­en­ly Father, a year of Jubilee in the spir­it of hope, I offer heart­felt good wish­es of peace to every man and woman. I think espe­cial­ly of those who feel down­trod­den, bur­dened by their past mis­takes, oppressed by the judg­ment of oth­ers and inca­pable of per­ceiv­ing even a glim­mer of hope for their own lives. Upon every­one I invoke hope and peace, for this is a Year of Grace born of the Heart of the Redeemer!

2. Through­out this year, the Catholic Church cel­e­brates the Jubilee, an event that fills hearts with hope. The “jubilee” recalls an ancient Jew­ish prac­tice, when, every forty-ninth year, the sound of a ram’s horn (in Hebrew, jobel) would pro­claim a year of for­give­ness and free­dom for the entire peo­ple (cf. Lev 25:10). This solemn procla­ma­tion was meant to echo through­out the land (cf. Lev 25:9) and to restore God’s jus­tice in every aspect of life: in the use of the land, in the pos­ses­sion of goods and in rela­tion­ships with oth­ers, above all the poor and the dis­pos­sessed. The blow­ing of the horn remind­ed the entire peo­ple, rich and poor alike, that no one comes into this world doomed to oppres­sion: all of us are broth­ers and sis­ters, sons and daugh­ters of the same Father, born to live in free­dom, in accor­dance with the Lord’s will (cf. Lev 25:17, 25, 43, 46, 55).

3. In our day too, the Jubilee is an event that inspires us to seek to estab­lish the lib­er­at­ing jus­tice of God in our world. In place of the ram’s horn, at the start of this Year of Grace we wish to hear the “des­per­ate plea for help” [1] that, like the cry of the blood of Abel (cf. Gen 4:10), ris­es up from so many parts of our world – a plea that God nev­er fails to hear. We for our part feel bound to cry out and denounce the many sit­u­a­tions in which the earth is exploit­ed and our neigh­bours oppressed. [2] These injus­tices can appear at times in the form of what Saint John Paul II called “struc­tures of sin”, [3] that arise not only from injus­tice on the part of some but are also con­sol­i­dat­ed and main­tained by a net­work of complicity.

4. Each of us must feel in some way respon­si­ble for the dev­as­ta­tion to which the earth, our com­mon home, has been sub­ject­ed, begin­ning with those actions that, albeit only indi­rect­ly, fuel the con­flicts that present­ly plague our human fam­i­ly. Sys­temic chal­lenges, dis­tinct yet inter­con­nect­ed, are thus cre­at­ed and togeth­er cause hav­oc in our world. [4] I think, in par­tic­u­lar, of all man­ner of dis­par­i­ties, the inhu­man treat­ment met­ed out to migrants, envi­ron­men­tal decay, the con­fu­sion will­ful­ly cre­at­ed by dis­in­for­ma­tion, the refusal to engage in any form of dia­logue and the immense resources spent on the indus­try of war. All these, tak­en togeth­er, rep­re­sent a threat to the exis­tence of human­i­ty as a whole. At the begin­ning of this year, then, we desire to heed the plea of suf­fer­ing humankind in order to feel called, togeth­er and as indi­vid­u­als, to break the bonds of injus­tice and to pro­claim God’s jus­tice. Spo­radic acts of phil­an­thropy are not enough. Cul­tur­al and struc­tur­al changes are nec­es­sary, so that endur­ing change may come about. [5]

II. A cul­tur­al change: all of us are debtors

5. The cel­e­bra­tion of the Jubilee spurs us to make a num­ber of changes in order to con­front the present state of injus­tice and inequal­i­ty by remind­ing our­selves that the goods of the earth are meant not for a priv­i­leged few, but for every­one. [6] We do well to recall the words of Saint Basil of Cae­sarea: “Tell me, what things belong to you? Where did you find them to make them part of your life? … Did you not come forth naked from the womb of your moth­er? Will you not return naked to the ground? Where did your prop­er­ty come from? If you say that it comes to you nat­u­ral­ly by luck, you would deny God by not rec­og­niz­ing the Cre­ator and being grate­ful to the Giv­er”. [7] With­out grat­i­tude, we are unable to rec­og­nize God’s gifts. Yet in 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. That is why, in teach­ing us the “Our Father”, Jesus told us to pray: “For­give us our tres­pass­es” ( Mt 6:12).

6. Once we lose sight of our rela­tion­ship to the Father, we begin to cher­ish the illu­sion that our rela­tion­ships with oth­ers can be gov­erned by a log­ic of exploita­tion and oppres­sion, where might makes right. [8] Like the elites at the time of Jesus, who prof­it­ed from the suf­fer­ing of the poor, so today, in our inter­con­nect­ed glob­al vil­lage, [9] the inter­na­tion­al sys­tem, unless it is inspired by a spir­it of sol­i­dar­i­ty and inter­de­pen­dence, gives rise to injus­tices, aggra­vat­ed by cor­rup­tion, which leave the poor­er coun­tries trapped. A men­tal­i­ty that exploits the indebt­ed can serve as a short­hand descrip­tion of the present “debt cri­sis” that weighs upon a num­ber of coun­tries, above all in the glob­al South.

7. I have repeat­ed­ly stat­ed that for­eign debt has become a means of con­trol where­by cer­tain gov­ern­ments and pri­vate finan­cial insti­tu­tions of the rich­er coun­tries unscrupu­lous­ly and indis­crim­i­nate­ly exploit the human and nat­ur­al resources of poor­er coun­tries, sim­ply to sat­is­fy the demands of their own mar­kets. [10] In addi­tion, dif­fer­ent peo­ples, already bur­dened by inter­na­tion­al debt, find them­selves also forced to bear the bur­den of the “eco­log­i­cal debt” incurred by the more devel­oped coun­tries. [11] For­eign debt and eco­log­i­cal debt are two sides of the same coin, name­ly the mind­set of exploita­tion that has cul­mi­nat­ed in the debt cri­sis. [12] In the spir­it of this Jubilee Year, I urge the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to work towards for­giv­ing for­eign debt in recog­ni­tion of the eco­log­i­cal debt exist­ing between the North and the South of this world. This is an appeal for sol­i­dar­i­ty, but above all for jus­tice. [13]

8. The cul­tur­al and struc­tur­al change need­ed to sur­mount this cri­sis will come about when we final­ly rec­og­nize that we are all sons and daugh­ters of the one Father, that we are all in his debt but also that we need one anoth­er, in a spir­it of shared and diver­si­fied respon­si­bil­i­ty. We will be able to “redis­cov­er once for all that we need one anoth­er” and are indebt­ed one to anoth­er. [14]

III. A jour­ney of hope: three proposals

9. If we take to heart these much-need­ed changes, the Jubilee Year of Grace can serve to set each of us on a renewed jour­ney of hope, born of the expe­ri­ence of God’s unlim­it­ed mer­cy. [15]

God owes noth­ing to any­one, yet he con­stant­ly bestows his grace and mer­cy upon all. As Isaac of Nin­eveh, a sev­enth-cen­tu­ry Father of the East­ern Church, put it in one of his prayers: “Your love, Lord, is greater than my tres­pass­es. The waves of the sea are noth­ing with respect to the mul­ti­tude of my sins, but placed on a scale and weighed against your love, they van­ish like a speck of dust”. [16] God does not weigh up the evils we com­mit; rather, he is immense­ly “rich in mer­cy, for the great love with which he loved us” ( Eph 2:4). Yet he also hears the plea of the poor and the cry of the earth. We would do well sim­ply to stop for a moment, at the begin­ning of this year, to think of the mer­cy with which he con­stant­ly for­gives our sins and for­gives our every debt, so that our hearts may over­flow with hope and peace.

10. In teach­ing us to pray the “Our Father”, Jesus begins by ask­ing the Father to for­give our tres­pass­es, but pass­es imme­di­ate­ly to the chal­leng­ing words: “as we for­give those who tres­pass against us” (cf. Mt 6:12). In order to for­give oth­ers their tres­pass­es and to offer them hope, we need for our own lives to be filled with that same hope, the fruit of our expe­ri­ence of God’s mer­cy. Hope over­flows in gen­eros­i­ty; it is free of cal­cu­la­tion, makes no hid­den demands, is uncon­cerned with gain, but aims at one thing alone: to raise up those who have fall­en, to heal hearts that are bro­ken and to set us free from every kind of bondage.

11. Con­se­quent­ly, at the begin­ning of this Year of Grace, I would like to offer three pro­pos­als capa­ble of restor­ing dig­ni­ty to the lives of entire peo­ples and enabling them to set them out anew on the jour­ney of hope. In this way, the debt cri­sis can be over­come and all of us can once more real­ize that we are debtors whose debts have been forgiven.

First, I renew the appeal launched by Saint John Paul II on the occa­sion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 to con­sid­er “reduc­ing sub­stan­tial­ly, if not can­celling out­right, the inter­na­tion­al debt which seri­ous­ly threat­ens the future of many nations”. [17] In recog­ni­tion of their eco­log­i­cal debt, the more pros­per­ous coun­tries ought to feel called to do every­thing pos­si­ble to for­give the debts of those coun­tries that are in no con­di­tion to repay the amount they owe. Nat­u­ral­ly, lest this prove mere­ly an iso­lat­ed act of char­i­ty that sim­ply reboots the vicious cycle of financ­ing and indebt­ed­ness, a new finan­cial frame­work must be devised, lead­ing to the cre­ation of a glob­al finan­cial Char­ter based on sol­i­dar­i­ty and har­mo­ny between peoples.

I also ask for a firm com­mit­ment to respect for the dig­ni­ty of human life from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death, so that each per­son can cher­ish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of pros­per­i­ty and hap­pi­ness for them­selves and for their chil­dren. With­out hope for the future, it becomes hard for the young to look for­ward to bring­ing new lives into the world. Here I would like once more to pro­pose a con­crete ges­ture that can help fos­ter the cul­ture of life, name­ly the elim­i­na­tion of the death penal­ty in all nations. This penal­ty not only com­pro­mis­es the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of life but elim­i­nates every human hope of for­give­ness and reha­bil­i­ta­tion. [18]

In addi­tion, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Saint Paul VI and Bene­dict XVI, [19] I do not hes­i­tate to make yet anoth­er appeal, for the sake of future gen­er­a­tions. In this time marked by wars, let us use at least a fixed per­cent­age of the mon­ey ear­marked for arma­ments to estab­lish a glob­al Fund to erad­i­cate hunger and facil­i­tate in the poor­er coun­tries edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties aimed at pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and com­bat­ing cli­mate change. [20] We need to work at elim­i­nat­ing every pre­text that encour­ages young peo­ple to regard their future as hope­less or dom­i­nat­ed by the thirst to avenge the blood of their dear ones. The future is a gift meant to enable us to go beyond past fail­ures and to pave new paths of peace.

IV. The goal of peace

12. Those who take up these pro­pos­als and set out on the jour­ney of hope will sure­ly glimpse the dawn of the great­ly desired goal of peace. The Psalmist promis­es us that “stead­fast love and faith­ful­ness will meet; right­eous­ness and peace will kiss” ( Ps 85:10). 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. As Saint John XXIII observed, true peace can be born only from a heart “dis­armed” of anx­i­ety and the fear of war. [21]

13. May 2025 be a year in which peace flour­ish­es! A true and last­ing peace that goes beyond quib­bling over the details of agree­ments and human com­pro­mis­es. [22] May we seek the true peace that is grant­ed by God to hearts dis­armed: hearts not set on cal­cu­lat­ing what is mine and what is yours; hearts that turn self­ish­ness into readi­ness to reach out to oth­ers; hearts that see them­selves as indebt­ed to God and thus pre­pared to for­give the debts that oppress oth­ers; hearts that replace anx­i­ety about the future with the hope that every indi­vid­ual can be a resource for the build­ing of a bet­ter world.

14. Dis­arm­ing hearts is a job for every­one, great and small, rich and poor alike. At times, some­thing quite sim­ple will do, such as “a smile, a small ges­ture of friend­ship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed”. [23] With such ges­tures, we progress towards the goal of peace. We will arrive all the more quick­ly if, in the course of jour­ney­ing along­side our broth­ers and sis­ters, we dis­cov­er that we have changed from the time we first set out. Peace does not only come with the end of wars but with the dawn of a new world, a world in which we real­ize that we are dif­fer­ent, clos­er and more fra­ter­nal than we ever thought possible.

15. Lord, grant us your peace! This is my prayer to God as I now offer my cor­dial good wish­es for the New Year to the Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment, to the lead­ers of Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tions, to the lead­ers of the var­i­ous reli­gions and to every per­son of good will.

For­give us our tres­pass­es, Lord,

as we for­give those who tres­pass against us.

In this cycle of for­give­ness, grant us your peace,

the peace that you alone can give

to those who let them­selves be dis­armed in heart,

to those who choose in hope to for­give the debts of their broth­ers and sisters,

to those who are unafraid to con­fess their debt to you,

and to those who do not close their ears to the cry of the poor.

From the Vat­i­can, 8 Decem­ber 2024

FRANCIS

___________________________

[1] Bull of Indic­tion of the Ordi­nary Jubilee of the Year 2025 Spes Non Con­fun­dit (9 May 2024), 8.

[2] Cf. SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Apos­tolic Let­ter Ter­tio Mil­len­nio Adve­niente (10 Novem­ber 1994), 51.

[3] Encycli­cal Let­ter Sol­lic­i­tu­do Rei Socialis (30 Decem­ber 1987), 36.

[4] Cf. Address to Par­tic­i­pants in the Sum­mit of the Pon­tif­i­cal Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences and of Social Sci­ences, 16 May 2024.

[5] Cf. Apos­tolic Exhor­ta­tion Lau­date Deum (4 Octo­ber 2023), 70.

[6] Cf. Bull of Indic­tion of the Ordi­nary Jubilee of the Year 2025 Spes Non Con­fun­dit (9 May 2024), 16.

[7] Homil­ia de avari­tia, 7: PG 31, 275.

[8] Cf. Encycli­cal Let­ter Lauda­to Si’ (24 May 2015), 123.

[9] Cf. Cat­e­ch­esis, 2 Sep­tem­ber 2020: L’Osservatore Romano, 3 Sep­tem­ber 2020, p. 8.

[10] Cf. Address to Par­tic­i­pants in the Meet­ing “Address­ing the Debt Cri­sis in the Glob­al South” , 5 June 2024.

[11] Cf. Address to the Con­fer­ence of Par­ties to the Unit­ed Nations Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change – COP 28, 2 Decem­ber 2023.

[12] Cf. Address to Par­tic­i­pants in the Meet­ing “Address­ing Debt Cri­sis in the Glob­al South”, 5 June 2024.

[13] Cf. Bull of Indic­tion of the Ordi­nary Jubilee of the Year 2025 Spes Non Con­fun­dit (9 May 2024), 16.

[14] Encycli­cal Let­ter Fratel­li Tut­ti (3 Octo­ber 2020), 35.

[15] Cf. Bull of Indic­tion of the Ordi­nary Jubilee of the Year 2025 Spes Non Con­fun­dit (9 May 2024), 23.

[16] Ora­tio X, 100–101: CSCO 638, 115. Saint Augus­tine could even state that God remains con­stant­ly in our debt: “Since ‘your mer­cy is ever­last­ing’, you deign by your promis­es to become a debtor to all those whose sins you for­give” (cf. Con­fes­sions, 5, 9, 17: PL 32, 714).

[17] Apos­tolic Let­ter Ter­tio Mil­len­nio Adve­niente (10 Novem­ber 1994), 51.

[18] Cf. Bull of Indic­tion of the Ordi­nary Jubilee of the Year 2025 Spes Non Con­fun­dit (9 May 2024), 10.

[19] Cf. SAINT PAUL VI, Encycli­cal Let­ter Pop­u­lo­rum Pro­gres­sio (26 March 1967), 51; BENEDICT XVI, Address to the Diplo­mat­ic Corps accred­it­ed to the Holy See, 9 Jan­u­ary 2006; Post-Syn­odal Apos­tolic Exhor­ta­tion Sacra­men­tum Car­i­tatis (22 Feb­ru­ary 2007), 90.

[20] Cf. Encycli­cal Let­ter Fratel­li Tut­ti (3 Octo­ber 2020), 262; Address to the Diplo­mat­ic Corps accred­it­ed to the Holy See, 8 Jan­u­ary 2024; Address to the Con­fer­ence of Par­ties to the Unit­ed Nations Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change – COP 28, 2 Decem­ber 2023.

[21] Cf. Encycli­cal Let­ter Pacem in Ter­ris (11 April 1963), Carlen 113.

[22] Cf. Moment of Prayer on the Tenth Anniver­sary of the “Invo­ca­tion for Peace in the Holy Land”, 7 June 2024.

[23] Bull of Indic­tion of the Ordi­nary Jubilee of the Year 2025 Spes Non Con­fun­dit (9 May 2024), 18.