By Quinton Amundson, The Catholic Register
[Canadian Catholic News] – KAIROS Canada, Development and Peace-Caritas Canada, and the Calgary Interfaith Council are among the faith entities teaming up for the G7 Jubilee People’s Forum at Calgary’s Ambrose University from June 12-15, 2025.
Before delegates from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union descend upon the mountainous Kananaskis, AB, for high-level G7 Summit discussions on the global economy and geopolitical issues — including the war in Ukraine — June 15-17, the grassroots assembly will empower pilgrims and activists to share their visions for the future.
“It’s about gathering together, coalescing our ideas and our message and putting it to the leader’s summit,” said Shannon Neufeldt, KAIROS Canada’s member relations and network coordinator.
All the organizations championing this fellowship, prayer, learning and civic action event share one overarching dream: a “Jubilee world” where debt is cancelled and ecological and economic justice is achieved.
The people’s forum will likely represent the highest profile initiative associated with the year-long Jubilee 2025 Turn Dept into Hope petition campaign KAIROS Canada — a faith-based ecumenical organization — and other collaborators are promoting throughout the calendar year.
A poster for the People’s Forum planned for June 12-15 in Calgary. Registration is open until June 1 at https://kairoscanada.org/jubilee-2025-canada/g7-peoples-forum. (Image courtesy of KAIROS)
Worldwide petition
The Canadian goal is 100,000 signatures and the worldwide target is 10 million to sign a petition calling for the cancellation of debts of poorer nations. By May 28, 23,600 Canadians had signed the petition.
This global ecumenical enterprise seeks to build on the success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which voided over $100 billion of debt for 36 low-income countries.
Jubilee 2025 is spotlighting the debt crises experienced by the Global South and Indigenous communities. The campaign notes that many nations are compelled to repay debt at the expense of health care, education and climate action.
Several forum workshops are expected to enlighten attendees on the situation in the Global South and show how Indigenous communities and different faith groups envisage a “Jubilee world.”
One of the guest speakers at the forum will be Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto, Emeritus Archbishop of Huancayo, Peru. Cardinal Barreto helped shaped the thoughts articulated in Laudato Si’ and played a lead role in the landmark Pan-Amazonian Synod of 2019. He also has deep personal links with Pope Leo XIV, with whom he served in Peru. As a longstanding and outspoken defender of human rights and the environment, the cardinal will challenge forum participants and the G7 leadership to consider how powerful nations’ choices affect impoverished and marginalized communities in the Global South. Other notable speakers at the forum will include Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek; Salome Owuonda, executive director of the Africa Centre for Sustainable and Inclusive Development in Kenya; Tarek Al-Zoughbi, youth coordinator at the Wi’am Bethlehem, Palestine; and Sandra Xoquic Atz, a legal advisor at the Kaji Ajpop Mayan Indigenous rights organization in Guatemala. (Submitted photo courtesy of KAIROS)
A young adult meet-and-greet, supper and an interfaith worship session highlight day one of the schedule.
Neufeldt is most excited to witness the contributions that will be made by young attendees.
“They are coming from different walks of life, different studies (like) economics, music, politics and journalism, and all kinds of (varied) interests,” said Neufeldt. “They’ve already started a conversation about what they’d like to see at the forum, how they can contribute and how they will help to carry this movement forward.”
The interactive visioning exercise scheduled to end the June 13 schedule will encourage young adults to share their concept of a thriving community and to contemplate how to manifest their grand design.
An expected special feature of the June 14 activities is an interfaith prayer gathering in the presence of the Stoney Nakoda Medicine Wheel in Stoney Park. The symbology featured within the medicine wheel observes the inter-connectedness of all living things and the cycles of life.
The fourth and final day of the event is devoted to attendees visiting churches throughout Calgary to present on the Jubilee and then participate in public G7 demonstrations in downtown Calgary with other civil society organizations.
People’s forum activists are expected to march with the International League of People’s Struggles and the International Migrants Alliance, address a Calgary Climate Club rally and even provide some street theatre by busting open a pink pig pinata to signify smashing debt. Participants are also encouraged to mobilize their own G7 Jubilee Rally.
Visit kairoscanada.org/jubilee-2025-canada/g7-peoples-forum for more information, including how to register before the June 1 deadline.
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