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World Day of Peace: 2025

Lou Giorgetti



Europa 1995:
Peace and Freedom
Scott 972

Each year, the Vatican celebrates World Day of Peace on January 1. The day was established by Pope Paul VI in 1967 and was first celebrated on January 1, 1968.

In preparation for the 58th World Day of Peace, on December 8 the pope published his message for the day, entitled “Forgive Us Our Trespasses: Grant Us Your Peace”. He opens his message with the following paragraph:
”At the dawn of this New Year given to us by our heavenly Father, a year of Jubilee in the spirit of hope, I offer heartfelt good wishes of peace to every man and woman. I think especially of those who feel downtrodden, burdened by their past mistakes, oppressed by the judgment of others and incapable of perceiving even a glimmer of hope for their own lives. Upon everyone I invoke hope and peace, for this is a Year of Grace born of the Heart of the Redeemer!”
In the Jewish tradition of the Jubilee, which represents a “special year of universal remission of sins and debts”, the thrust of the pope’s message is a plea for the remission of foreign debt borne by developing countries. He bluntly states:
“Foreign debt has become a means of control whereby certain governments and private financial institutions of the richer countries unscrupulously and indiscriminately exploit the human and natural resources of poorer countries, simply to satisfy the demands of their own markets.”
The message contains the following major topics:
  • Listening to the plea of an endangered humanity
  • A cultural change: all of us are debtors
  • A journey of hope: three proposals
  • The goal of peace
    He concludes his message with the following prayer:
    “Forgive us our trespasses, Lord,
    as we forgive those who trespass against us.
    In this cycle of forgiveness, grant us your peace,
    the peace that you alone can give
    to those who let themselves be disarmed in heart,
    to those who choose in hope to forgive the debts of their brothers and sisters,
    to those who are unafraid to confess their debt to you,
    and to those who do not close their ears to the cry of the poor.”

    This year’s message, coinciding with the Jubilee Year of 2025, parallels the message of Pope John Paul II during the Holy Year of 2000, where he also called for debt relief and the consideration of both substantial reductions of debt payments, as well as the outright cancellation of international debts of countries “that are in no condition to repay the amount they owe." In 2001, Vatican City issued a five-stamps set focused on the issue of remission of debt:



    Remission of Debt for Poor Countries
    Scott 1191-1195 (2001)


    The entire text of the pope’s World Peace Day message can be viewed by clicking on the reference link below.

    REFERENCES:
  • Vatican.va, December 8, 2024, MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR THE LVIII WORLD DAY OF PEACE 1st JANUARY 2025

  • Lisa Zengarini, Vatican News, December 8, 2024, Pope’s World Day of Peace message: ‘We are all in debt to God’

  • Vatican Philatelic Society website, www.vaticanstamps.org, Stamp Database Search