Pope addresses World Food Summit

(November 16, 2009) Describing hunger as the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty, Pope Benedict XVI on Monday condemned opulence and waste in the world and urged the international community to add a moral dimension to the fight against poverty and hunger. Pope Benedict was addressing the World Food Summit on its opening day at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, in Rome. Leaders and delegations from nearly 200 countries are attending the 3-day meeting that concludes on Wednesday. Pope Benedict lent his moral authority to what U.N. officials are hoping will be a solid start to a change in aid policies at a time when hunger affects over a billion people or one in six people on the planet. The Pontiff, on his first visit to the FAO, called for the need to oppose those forms of aid to the poor that do grave damage to the agricultural sector, those approaches to food production that are geared solely towards consumption and lack a wider perspective, and especially greed, which causes speculation…, as if food were to be treated just like any other commodity. He also called for access to international markets for products coming from the poorest countries, which he says are often shunted to the sidelines. He told delegates that in the fight against hunger, one must not forget man’s fundamental rights, which include the right to sufficient, healthy and nutritious food as well as water. These rights, he said take on an important role in the realization of others, beginning with the primary one, the right to life. If the aim is to eliminate hunger, international action is needed not only to promote balanced and sustainable economic growth and political stability, but also to seek out new parameters – primarily ethical but also juridical and economic ones – capable of inspiring the degree of cooperation required to build a relationship of parity between countries at different stages of development. Analyzing the relationship between development and the protection of the environment, Pope Benedict reminded all that “the deterioration of nature is … closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence. “When ‘human ecology’ is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits,” he added.