The Jubilee Year is, for many, about making a pilgrimage to Rome, walking through one of the Holy Doors at the various basilicas. Thanks to Pope Francis, there is a Holy Door at the Rebibbia prison. Such pilgrimages confer a plenary indulgence, the remission of temporal punishment for sins already forgiven, on those who make them.
In advance of the 2000 Jubilee, Pope John Paul II and many other religious leaders called for a different kind of remission, canceling the debt of impoverished nations. Jubilee USA was founded at that time to help make this retrieval of the ancient practice of forgiving debt during a jubilee a reality.
Francis, in his New Year’s address, made debt forgiveness a central theme of this…
