Pope Benedict receives FAO conference participants

Pope Benedict today received the participants attending the 37^th Conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization which has its headquarters in Rome. The UN Food and Food and Agriculture Organization is located just a short distance from the Vatican and Pope Benedict noted this neigbourly closeness when he greeted the participants of the organization’s 37^th conference on Friday.

Among those present was the out-going Director-General of FAO, Mr Jacques Diouf, and the Director General elect, Mr José Graziano da Silva.

The Holy Father took the opportunity to wish Mr da Silva the best for his future work with FAO and he also renewed the support of the Holy See for what he called, “the meritorious and invaluable work of the Organization”.

Pope Benedict’s speech to those gathered covered a number of issues including the revival of agriculture, poverty and hunger, food security, and rising prices.

The Pope said that poverty, underdevelopment and hunger were very often the result of a selfish attitude that comes from the heart of man and is manifested in his social action, such as in trade, and market conditions.

“How can we ignore”, the Holy Father went on to say, the fact that food has become the subject of speculation, or is related to financial market trends that, without clear rules and lacking in moral principles, is pegged to the single objective of profit?

Pope Benedict stressed that solidarity was an essential criterion for all policy and strategy especially when it comes to fears regarding instability and rising prices.

And he also underlined that a development model needs to take into account the human as well as economic and technical dimension.

The Pope’s thoughts then turned to the plight of millions of children around the world who even today are doomed to an early death through poverty, hunger and exploitation and he hoped that the younger generation would be encouraged to combat the abandonment of rural and agricultural work, so as “to enable entire communities, whose survival is threatened by hunger, to look with greater confidence about their future”.

In his concluding remarks Pope Benedict while reflecting on the many problems affecting agricultural activity also looked to the new opportunities to help alleviate the tragedy of hunger. Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report