Representatives from 25 Faith-Based Organizations Announce Plans for 2007 Sabbath Year

As a member organization of the Jubilee USA Network, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate urge you to become involved in the 2007 Sabbath Year Campaign outlined below.

Groups Announce Year-Long Campaign for Jubilee Debt Cancellation, Seven Years After Jubilee 2000

WASHINGTON – More than twenty-five leading religious denominations, communities and faith-based groups that are part of the Jubilee USA Network announced plans for the 2007 Sabbath Year at the Network's annual meeting Friday, October 13. Inspired by the Jubilee vision of liberation and fullness of life for all, people of faith and conscience around the world are calling their political leaders to observe a Sabbath Year in 2007, seven years after Jubilee 2000.

"The Sabbath Year is an opportunity to reflect on the progress made to date in canceling the debts of impoverished countries and to highlight the unfinished agenda that must be accomplished to achieve true Jubilee debt cancellation," said Neil Watkins, National Coordinator of the Jubilee USA Network. "Working with partners across the globe, the 2007 Sabbath Year will be a critical time to work for right relationships."

In 2007, the Jubilee USA Network will join with other people of faith and conscience to educate, organize, and mobilize to work for the jubilee vision of right relations between people and nations and an end to unjust debt and global poverty. Specific activities will include a delegation to the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya in January, observing the halfway point to the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, advocacy at the June G-8 summit in Germany, site of the initial Jubilee 2000 commitments, and a national rolling fast to call for a hearing in Congress on the JUBILEE Act, which would provide debt cancellation for many more nations that need it.

In launching the Sabbath Year, Jubilee USA Network stated:

"Seven years after the beginning of the new millennium, we live in a world that is seriously out of balance. The global gap between rich and poor continues to grow.   During the 2007 Sabbath Year the world will reach the half-way point to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), global commitments that would cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.   Despite these commitments, we are nowhere near meeting the goals. In Sub Saharan Africa for example the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has increased steadily from 1990 until today.

"Some of the money needed to meet the MDGs can be generated from aid, but new infusions of aid cannot be effective until the drain of debt payments is stopped.   Pouring more aid into impoverished countries without debt cancellation is like trying to fill a bathtub with the drain open.

"In addition to its current impacts, the origins of the debt are unjust. A large portion of debt is odious or illegitimate, accrued under oppressive regimes or on unfair terms.   During the Cold War era, loans were often made more for ideological and political reasons than for reasons of assisting development or addressing human needs. As people of faith and conscience we must ask, "Why should the people of the South endlessly pay for bad loans that never benefited the people?"

"In light of the Jubilee message of salvation, redemption, deliverance and liberation, debt burdens that prevent countries from meeting the most basic needs of their people cease to be merely a financial concern for a few and become a spiritual concern for all of us. To advocate and educate for debt cancellation in solidarity with the people of the world's impoverished countries is one way we can participate in God's Jubilee."

The following faith-based organizations participated in Jubilee USA Network's annual Network Council meetings in Washington, where plans to observe the 2007 Sabbath Year were announced:

Africa Faith and Justice Network, American Friends Service Committee, American Jewish World Service, Center of Concern, Church World Service, Columban Justice, Peace & Integrity of Creation Office, Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America Washington Office, Florida Council of Churches, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Jubilee USA Network, Leadership Council of Women Religious, Lutheran World Relief, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Medical Mission Sisters, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism, School Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, Sojourners/Call to Renewal, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Peace with Justice Program, United Methodist Women, and Washington Office on Africa

For more information, click here.

For specific questions, please contact:

 Debayani Kar
Communications and Advocacy Coordinator
Jubilee USA Network
222 E Capitol St NE
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 783-0215

Jubilee USA Network is an alliance of more than 75 religious denominations and faith communities, human rights, environmental, labor, and community groups working for the definitive cancellation of crushing debts to fight poverty and injustice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.