Today the Church celebrates the World Day of Peace 2025

Every January 1, the Catholic Church celebrates the World Day of Peace, an initiative that began in 1968 thanks to Saint Paul VI in order to promote this gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the 58th World Day of Peace that will take place this 2025, Pope Francis chose as the motto Forgive us our offenses, grant us your peace.

In his message published on December 12, the Pontiff highlights that this day is part of the Jubilee of 2025, in which the faithful are called to “seek the liberating justice of God over the entire earth” and to be the voice “of so many situations of exploitation of the land and oppression of others”, defined by Saint John Paul II as “structures of sin”.

In his text, the Holy Father recalls that the goods of the earth are gifts from God and therefore “they are not intended only for a few privileged people, but for all.”

However, he warns that when this relationship with God is ignored, the human being begins “to harbor the idea that relationships with others can be governed by a logic of exploitation, where the strongest claims to have the right to abuse the strongest.” weak”.

Francisco indicates that an example is the external debt suffered by poor countries and “the weight of the ecological debt of the most developed countries,” which the most needy nations must also bear.

Both are “two sides of the same coin of this logic of exploitation that culminates in the debt crisis,” says Pope Francis.

Therefore, “thinking about this Jubilee Year, I invite the international community to undertake actions to remit the external debt, recognizing the existence of an ecological debt between the north and the south of the world. It is a call for solidarity, but above all for justice,” he says.

However, he points out that in order to avoid “this being an isolated act of charity, which leads to the risk of once again triggering a vicious cycle of financing-debt, it is necessary, at the same time, to develop a new financial architecture, leading to the creation of a global financial document, founded on solidarity and harmony between peoples.”

Forgive our offenses

In his message, Pope Francis affirms that this crisis will be overcome when men recognize themselves as children of God and that everyone needs “each other.” “If we allow our hearts to be touched by these necessary changes, the Year of Grace of the Jubilee will be able to reopen the path of hope for each of us. “Hope is born from the experience of God’s mercy, which is always unlimited,” he adds.

God grants “without ceasing grace and mercy to all men,” while “listening to the cry of the poor and the earth,” the Pontiff recalls.

In that sense, he invites us to think at this beginning of the year “about the grace with which (God) forgives our sins and forgives all our debts, so that our hearts are flooded with hope and peace.”

But in addition, the Pope recalls that when teaching the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus “establishes a very demanding statement: ‘Just as we also forgive those who offend us.’”

“To forgive an offense to others and give them hope, it is necessary, in fact, that one’s own life be filled with that same hope that comes from the mercy of God. Hope is superabundant in generosity, it does not calculate, it does not demand accounts from debtors, it is not concerned with its own gain, but has only one goal as its focus: to lift up the fallen, to bind up wounded hearts, to free from all forms of slavery,” he explains.

Restore the dignity of the populations

In his message, Pope Francis also invites the faithful to carry out actions that allow “restoring dignity in the lives of entire populations and putting them back on the path of hope.”

In addition to his call to forgive the debts of countries that are not able to assume them, the Pontiff asks for “a firm commitment to promote respect for the dignity of human life, from conception to natural death,” since without hope In life, “it is difficult for the desire to generate other lives to arise in the hearts of the youngest.”

“Here, in particular, I would like to invite once again a concrete gesture that can promote the culture of life. I am referring to the elimination of the death penalty in all nations. This measure, in fact, in addition to compromising the inviolability of life, destroys all human hope for forgiveness and renewal,” he states.

Likewise, the Pope requests that “at least a fixed percentage of the money used in armaments be used for the constitution of a World Fund that will definitively eliminate hunger and facilitate educational activities in the poorest countries also aimed at promoting sustainable development, contrasting climate change.”

The Pontiff assures that those who undertake the path of hope through the suggested gestures, “will be able to see the long-awaited goal of peace ever closer.”

“May 2025 be a year in which peace grows. That real and lasting peace, which does not stop at the objections of contracts or at the tables of human commitments,” says Pope Francis.

The Pontiff concludes his message by assuring that God gives true peace to those who dissipate “selfishness in the readiness to go out to meet others,” and who do not hesitate to recognize themselves as debtors “to God and that is why he is willing to forgive debts that oppress others; a heart that overcomes discouragement about the future with the hope that every person is a good for this world.”