Caritas and the Vatican lead calls to end debt crisis at UN conference: June 30, 2025

Debt Crisis. A senior Vatican official has stated that the international community has a “duty” to reform the international financial system in order to tackle a global debt crisis driving poverty worldwide. The following was a press release from Caritas International.

Caritas and the Vatican lead calls to end debt crisis at UN conference

A senior Vatican official has stated that the international community has a “duty” to reform the international financial system in order to tackle a global debt crisis driving poverty worldwide.

Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, told a major UN conference that “financial and economic policy should serve people”, rather than “the other way around”.

Archbishop Caccia was speaking as part of an event organised by the Vatican and members of the Church’s global aid and development network, Caritas Internationalis. The event took place at the Fourth UN International Conference on Financing for Development, in Seville, Spain, where governments have been expected to set out ways of ensuring that low-and middle-income countries have the finance they need to provide basic public services and tackle poverty.

The United Nations recently found that the debt crisis facing many developing countries is reaching new heights not seen in more than two decades, resulting in devastating development trade-offs. In his intervention, Archbishop Caccia said:

It is both alarming and clear that developing countries are increasingly being forced to make impossible choices between servicing debt and serving their people. In this Jubilee Year, the Church urges us to be bold in our efforts in addressing these injustices.

 Archbishop Gabriele Caccia

The Archbishop also added that reforms must ensure that “borrowing and lending is transparent, participatory, accountable and sustainable so that no government is ever forced to divert critical investments in healthcare and education towards servicing debt”.

Alistair Dutton, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis, said at the event that the debt crisis was “the least painful” problem in global financing to fix. Dutton welcomed pledges from countries taking part in the UN conference to consider measures to prevent creditors from refusing to engage in talks to restructure debt, as well as a commitment for major financial institutions to look at how to make debt burdens more sustainable and prevent countries facing crises.

The Jubilee year in the Catholic Church is not simply a time for hope but a mandate for justice.

Alistair Dutton, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis

The discussion event also featured global finance experts Penelope Hawkins, Chief of Debt and Development Finance at UNCTAD; Professor Attiya Waris, UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights; and Jwala Rambarran, Senior Policy Advisor to the Caribbean Policy Development Centre. Experts emphasised the urgent need for debt restructuring mechanisms that uphold human rights and the right to development, highlighting how countries in the Global South are trapped in a cycle of debt dependency and austerity, which prevents them from investing adequately in education, healthcare, and climate adaptation.

The event was co-sponsored by Caritas Europa, CAFOD, Cáritas Española, CRS, Development & Peace – Caritas Canada, Caritas Africa, in collaboration with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.

More information about Caritas Internationalis’ Turn Debt into Hope campaign can be found at: turndebtintohope.caritas.org

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