A moratorium on Third World debt.

Ottawa-Shortly before Christmas, Finance Minister Paul Martin placed a moratorium on repayment of about $700 million (Cdn) in loans from eleven of the world's poorest countries. As of January 1, 2001, forgiving the debt entirely is the same as not expecting the principal to be paid. Four other countries which owe about $370 million will be given a break as well when they end human rights atrocities.

The Toronto Sun referred to the debt suspension as reflecting a "rock, n roll courtship between ... Martin and Bono of U2...." The singer has been prominent in an international campaign to erase debt, called Jubilee 2000.

But the origins of debt relief go back to a London-based Catholic relief agency, CAFOD, which originally mentioned debt relief as a possible goal for the millennium year some 17 years ago. The idea was reinforced greatly by the Pope's apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente in 1996.

An alliance of all the British churches founded "Jubilee 2000" in 1996, making it first a national and then an international idea whose time had come. It forced Third World debt to the top of the international political agenda. The petition it circulated throughout the Western world now has over 24 million signatures--putting it in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest international petition ever.

At the beginning of December, 2000, Britain cancelled the debt of 41 countries, including 29 when they have undertaken needed reforms, for a total of $1.43 billion U.S. There is much yet to be done, but the initiatives by Britain and Canada are important first steps.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, did not hesitate to praise the church contribution to the campaign for debt relief. He produced a variant of Stalin's famous question, "How many divisions has the Pope?" He asked, "How much international financial clout has Christianity?" Answer: "$100 billion and counting."

In Canada, credit must be given to the Catholic Bishops' Conference and various ecumenical groups who, like the British, promoted this cause.

In early January, 2001, Italy, too, announced agreements geared to cancelling the debt of 22 Third World countries to the amount of $1.8 billion U.S.

What has to be watched, however, is that the "reforms" demanded for debt relief do not include a demand for the introduction of contraception and abortion in Third World countries, something which today often becomes a condition for granting financial aid.