Pontiff addresses conference on hunger
November 20, 2014
Pope Francis traveled to the offices of the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome to address a major international conference on hunger.
“Nowadays there is much talk of rights, frequently neglecting duties; perhaps we have paid too little heed to those who are hungry,” he said in his November 20 address.
“It is also painful to see that the struggle against hunger and malnutrition is hindered by ‘market priorities,’ the ‘primacy of profit,’ which have reduced foodstuffs to a commodity like any other, subject to speculation, also of a financial nature,” he continued. “And while we speak of new rights, the hungry remain, at the street corner, and ask to be recognized as citizens, to receive a healthy diet. We ask for dignity, not for charity.”
He added:
[T]he first concern must be the individual as a whole, who lacks daily nourishment and has given up thinking about life, family and social relationships, instead fighting for survival. St. John Paul II, in the inauguration in this hall of the First Conference on Nutrition in 1992, warned the international community against the risk of the “paradox of plenty,” in which there is food for everyone, but not everyone can eat, while waste, excessive consumption and the use of food for other purposes is visible before our very eyes. Unfortunately, this “paradox” remains relevant …
Our societies are characterized by growing individualism and division: this ends up depriving the weakest of a decent life, and provokes revolts against institutions … If we believe in the principle of the unity of the human family, based on the common paternity of God the Creator, and in the fraternity of human beings, no form of political or economic pressure that exploits the availability of foodstuffs can be considered acceptable. But, above all, no system of discrimination, de facto or de jure, linked to the capacity of access to the market of foodstuffs, must be taken as a model for international efforts that aim to eliminate hunger.
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Further information:
- Pope Francis addresses FAO nutrition conference (Vatican Radio)
- Pope to visit FAO on occasion of nutrition conference (Vatican Radio)
- FAQs on the ICN2 outcome documents (Food and Agricultural Organization)
- Fame un delitto sociale (L’Osservatore Romano)
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