Thomson Reuters featured the US Catholic Bishops and Jubilee USA's joint letter to the White House calling for debt relief. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

Catholic bishops, faith groups urge Trump to back debt relief for poor countries

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and an alliance of faith groups have urged President Donald Trump to champion a moratorium on debt payments for poor countries hit by the coronavirus pandemic that has triggered a global recession.

In a letter sent to the U.S. president on Wednesday, the groups said U.S. leadership was needed to both to help the 76 poorest countries in the world combat the pandemic and safeguard U.S. economic interests.

A move by rich countries, the Group of 20 major economies, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to suspend debt payments for those countries would allow them to bolster their health systems and provide for their own health safety, the groups wrote in a letter dated Wednesday.

The novel coronavirus that emerged in China in December has raced around the globe, infecting 1.41 million people and killing 87,700, according to a Reuters tally.

The IMF and World Bank, backed by the World Health Organization, have called on China, the United States and other bilateral creditors to temporarily suspend debt payments by the poorest countries so they could use the money to halt the spread of the disease and mitigate its financial impact.

G20 finance ministers and central bankers are due to consider the issue when they meet online next week during the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank.

The letter from the Catholic bishops and Jubilee USA Network, a non-profit alliance of religious, development and advocacy groups, comes amid growing concern about the high level of debt of developing countries and emerging market economies.

“The current financial crisis threatens U.S. imports and exports from and to the developing world,” the bishops and Jubilee USA wrote. “Providing a suspension of debt payments and debt relief will help safeguard our common interests of returning the U.S. economy to prosperity and growth.”

The groups said the debt payment moratorium should both be interest-free, and expose all debts, including private and predatory loans.

Such a decision could help better assess debt sustainability and vulnerabilities, and, if warranted, trigger a process to restructure debt, the groups told the U.S. president.

Lending by Western countries and multilateral institutions slowed after a major round of debt restructuring in 1996, but the Chinese government, banks and companies have dramatically expanded their lending to developing countries since then.

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The National Catholic Reporter featured Eric LeCompte's take on the future of the Catholic church's social mission. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

The church after coronavirus: new understandings of social mission

Click Lancashire cited Eric LeCompte on the IMF's coronavirus response. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story. 

IMF Working to Support Georgian Economy amid Coronavirus Crisis

"We believe the Fund should take additional, deeper actions to expand debt relief, aid to the poorest countries in the world as well as offer greater relief to the so-called Middle Income Countries", wrote Jubilee USA Executive Director Eric LeCompte in a letter to the head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva.

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The Catholic News Service featured Jubilee USA's work on moving debt relief for poor countries as a response to COVID-19 and the global recession as part of an article on Cardinal Tagle's call for debt relief. Crux, Catholic San Francisco and thousands of other news outlets included Eric's comments in their stories. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

Declare a jubilee: Pandemic is time to forgive debts, cardinal suggests

The Associated Press quoted Eric LeCompte on the IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva's global recession remarks. Fox News, The New York Times, US News and World Report and tens of thousands of other news outlets included Eric's comments in their stories around the world. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

The Miami Herald interviewed Eric LeCompte on the impact of the coronavirus and global economic slowdown in Latin American and the Caribbean. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

COVID-19 is hitting Caribbean and Latin American economies hard. Can they survive?

Pittsburgh Catholic reported on Eric LeCompte's recent thoughts on Pope Francis' Jubilee Meeting with world leaders and economists. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

Vatican opens doors to leaders ready for economic reform

The leading “global decision-makers” all agree on the root causes of unsustainable inequality and are adamant about wanting to prevent yet another global financial crisis, said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network and an observer invited to the Vatican gathering.

He told Catholic News Service the problem comes in finding consensus on the solutions, “the ways forward for countries to get out of debt crisis and financial crisis and also for building an economy that’s more inclusive and where there is less of a distinction between the haves and the have-nots.”

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Eric LeCompte's analysis of recent IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva were featured in Seeking Alpha. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

The Glub, Glub, Glub Of Recession Circling The Drain

Eric LeCompte, the head of debt charity Jubilee USA, said: "The IMF delivered a stark message about the potential for another massive financial disaster that we last experienced during the Great Depression.

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Chicago Catholic reported on Eric LeCompte's thoughts on the recent Vatican high-level seminar where Pope Francis urged the creation of new global debt and tax policies that can reduce inequality. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

Vatican opens doors to leaders ready for finance reform

The leading “global decision-makers” all agree on the root causes of unsustainable inequality and are adamant about wanting to prevent yet another global financial crisis, said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network and an observer invited to the Vatican gathering.

He told Catholic News Service the problem comes in finding consensus on the solutions, “the ways forward for countries to get out of debt crisis and financial crisis and also for building an economy that’s more inclusive, and where there is less of a distinction between the haves and the have-nots.”

LeCompte said, “Pope Francis really led his country as they were battling a type of predatory finance known as vulture funds,” so while he is continuing the same social teaching as his papal predecessors, “we see the Holy See talking more about very technical economic policies like derivatives and taxation and illicit financial flows.”

“There’s a real sense from this Holy Father that if we really want to change the structures that govern our economy, we need to be able to address these technical issues head-on,” he said.

The pope, in fact, made a point to stop by the pontifical academy in the early afternoon. His lengthy and detailed written speech continued to hammer home basic and reasonable ethical principles: an end to money laundering, the arms industry and tax havens that drain billions from national economies; stopping repeated tax cuts for the wealthy; and relieving crushing, unsustainable debt burdens, to name a few.

LeCompte said many of the solutions put forward “are ones that Jubilee has advocated for over 20 years, and we’ve worked very closely with the Holy See on developing those positions, as well as with all other major religious institutions around the world.”

Just as the pope’s encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” sets a clear way to examine current structures and advocates for the values of global solidarity and environmental and economic justice, the Feb. 5 gathering was a continuation of that call for a more just world.

“We actually have a very clear path that needs to be taken,” LeCompte said, which begins with God’s creation of a rich and abundant world.

And, he said, the path leads toward that “jubilee promise that Pope John Paul II was the first to exclaim — that we all deserve to live in an economy where we all have enough.”

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