The initiative to have Third World debt cancelled as a way of marking the millennium began in Britain in 1996. During the past two years it has spread to more than 40 countries worldwide.
In Ireland, many development and missionary organisations are actively promoting Jubilee 2000. In the past year alone more than 200,000 Irish people have signed the petitions. In Ennis more than 16,000 signatures were collected in October 1998.
The campaign is driven by the knowledge that paying off these huge debts is impoverishing the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The debt burden ensures citizens of poor countries will be denied basic health care, education or adequate nutrition in the coming decades.
The Jubilee initiative draws its inspiration from the Bible. The year of Jubilee in Leviticus, Chap 2 was seen as a way to re-establish a just social order at regular moments in Israel's history. It called for the release of Israelites who had become enslaved through economic misfortune (Lev 25: 35-38), restoration of land to the original owner (Lev 25: 23-28), and forgiveness of debts (Deut 15: 1-2).
At the end of every seven years a remission must be granted. The nature of the remission is this: every creditor who holds the person of his neighbour in bond must grant him remission. He may not exact payment from his fellow or his brother once the latter appeals to Yahweh.
The motivation for debt relief arose from the belief that Israel has been rescued from slavery in Egypt by a caring God. This God challenged the people of Israel to build a community marked by bonds of mutual support. There could be no genuine community if a small proportion of the population owned most of the land and exploited the starving masses at every turn.
Because Israel had experienced Yahweh's compassion it is understandable that the laws governing lending would be sensitive to the plight of debtors. Exodus 22:25 warns creditors that they must not impoverish the poor and worsen their plight.
"If you lend money to any of my people, to any poor man among you, you must not play the usurer with him; you must not demand interest from him (Ex 22: 24-25)."
The millennium celebrates the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus. The harsh socio-economic realities that obtained in Roman-occupied Palestine at the time of Jesus were marked by indebtedness, widespread begging and slavery. Poor country people had to hire out their labour every day just to stay alive.
Given this context, Jesus's preaching was good news for the poor. The second petition in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew's gospel asks to forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us (Matt 6: 12). Jesus was well aware that cancelling debts freed poor people from total economic dependence and gave them real freedom.
Even Luke's gospel, addressed to a Gentile audience in the period after the destruction of Jerusalem, highlights the issue of debt and Jubilee. Luke's congregation was composed of both rich and poor people, not unlike the global Christian community at the end of the 20th century. His message was one of challenge to the rich to share with the poor.
Proclaiming the Jubilee with its accompanying instruction on debt relief is central to the message of Jesus in Luke's gospel. The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favour (Luke 4: 18-19).
Given the prominence of debt cancellation in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, debt write-offs for the poor should be at the top of the churches' agenda.
The parallels between what is happening in the Third World today and what was happening at the time when Jesus was preaching are very striking.
Then, as now, the debt treadmill was the vehicle that consigned huge segments of the population to perpetual, life-destroying poverty. How can a country such as Honduras which had 70 per cent of its infrastructure wiped out by Hurricane Mitch repay its debt?
If the people of Central America are to rebuild their lives they need debt cancellation not just the moratorium granted by Northern creditor nations in December 1998.
Pope John Paul II has urged Christians to campaign for "reducing substantially, if not cancelling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations". Similar calls for debt cancellation came from the Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops in July 1998.
Rich countries should heed these calls and act on them in order to free hundreds of millions of the poor of the world from the modern debtors' prison.
Father Sean McDonagh is a Columban priest and chairman of the environmental organisation Voice (formerly Greenpeace)