c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Hundreds of religious leaders from as far away as India and Peru have sent a letter to officials of the Group of Eight meeting in the United States this week, asking them to forgive the debts owed by the world’s most impoverished countries.

Bearing the signatures of Christian and Jewish clergy and an Indian swami, the letter urges the G-8 heads of state to “release life-saving resources in the form of full debt-cancellation.”

In their “prophetic call,” the faith leaders describe the debt payment as “a new form of slavery” that “literally takes food, shelter, health care, education and social services directly from the people that need them most.”

Officials from the Group of Eight _ Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States _ are gathering on an island off the southeastern coast of Georgia for a three-day conference. In past years, the group has focused on health care crises and the global economy. This year, in the wake of continuing terrorist threats and Iraq’s tenuous transition to self-rule, the agenda is expected to consist largely of security concerns and Middle East policies.

The Jubilee USA Network, a social justice coalition that released the letter to the G-8 leaders on Tuesday (June 8), hopes the global fight against poverty and AIDS doesn’t get pushed aside. Crucial to that fight, they say, is freeing up money that some poverty-stricken countries are spending on debt payments.

“In past years, during your annual summit,” the letter reads, “you have taken first steps at addressing the debt crisis.” In 1996, the leading industrial nations adopted _ with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank _ the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, which provided $31 billion of debt relief to the world’s most indigent nations. It was a good start, the letter from the religious leaders says, but it has “provided too little relief for too few countries.”

The issue has weighed on the conscience of various religious groups for some time. In 1989, the Vatican published a report that targeted debt relief as an important moral and religious concern.

In 1999, Pope John Paul II told the U.S. Catholic leaders that “in the spirit of the book of Leviticus, Christians will have to raise their voice on behalf of all of the poor of the world … to give thought to, among other things, reducing substantially, if not canceling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations.” The Vatican’s concern for the issue is reflected in the large number of Catholic leaders who have signed the letter to the G-8 leaders.

But even those whose faith traditions do not include the Levitical injunction _ in which God commands Moses to forgive debts and free slaves during a Jubilee year _ are urging the G-8 to “choose life, not debt.”

Swami Shuddhananda Brahmachari, a signatory to the letter, said in an interview that he first encountered the burdens of debt payments while helping the “poorest of the poor in the remote villages of West Bengal, India.” Because of his work in India, Swami Brahmachari was invited to Kenya, where a session of the Parliament of the World’s Religions was discussing debt cancellation and where he met Western social justice organizations, like the Jubilee USA Network.

“I am concerned about the international debts,” he said, because the “poorer countries are suffering with this burden of debt to the extent that developmental work remains a dream for them. While the children suffer from malnutrition and illiteracy, the debt service claims all the funds.”

It is the special calling of faith leaders such as Swami Brahmachari, the letter to the G-8 officials says, to dedicate themselves to “achieving a more just and human world.” The letter emphasizes “building right and equitable relationships between people and nations” and “protecting the dignity” of each individual, values that “resonate in all our faith traditions.”

Included in the list of signatories are Tony Campolo, the president of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education; the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; and William E. Lesher, chair of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Additional signatories include the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA); NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice group; Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; the Rev. William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association; and the Rev. Jim Wallis of Call to Renewal and Sojourners magazine.

DEA/PH END BURKE