This photo, taken and released on June 19, 2025, by Vatican media, shows Pope Leo XIV in a field during a visit to the Vatican Radio Transmission Center in Santa Maria di Galeria in Rome. (Credit: Francesco Sforza/AFP.)
A report by economists published Friday by the Vatican calls for "addressing debt crises" to give developing countries more leeway for their "essential investments."
Commissioned in February by Pope Francis as part of the 2025 Jubilee, the "holy year" of the Catholic Church, this 30-page report was drafted by about thirty experts under the direction of Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz.
"Across the developing world, the average interest burden has almost doubled over the past decade," the authors of the report observed in a statement. "Fifty-four developing countries now spend 10% or more of their tax revenues just to pay interest."
For the authors, "this situation diverts resources away from essential investments in health, education, infrastructure, and climate resilience, depriving millions of people of vital care, nutrition, and employment." To remedy this situation, the report urges creditors and debtor governments to "agree on debt restructurings that provide sufficient and rapid relief."
It also advises "multilateral institutions, including the International Monetary Fund [IMF]," to "modify their practices" to "end bailouts of private creditors." According to Joseph Stiglitz, as quoted in the statement, "experts increasingly agree that the current debt system serves financial markets rather than populations. This risks condemning entire nations to a lost decade, or worse."
During his 12-year pontificate, Pope Francis repeatedly called for the cancellation of the debt of developing countries. His successor, Leon XIV, who chose his name in reference to the father of the Church's social doctrine, Leon XIII, denounced the "economic paradigm that exploits the Earth's resources and marginalizes the poorest" during his inauguration mass.
The findings of the report will be discussed at the fourth international conference on development financing, which will take place in Seville in early July, at the United Nations General Assembly in September, and at the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November.