Pope tells IFAD it can count on support of Church to fight poverty

(Feb. 13, 2013) Pope Benedict XVI on Ash Wednesday expressed appreciation for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, for its partnership with the Catholic Church in fighting rural poverty in developing countries. In a message to the governing council of the Rome-based United Nations agency, the Pope noted that the season of Lent that begins with Ash Wednesday was an invitation to share the goods with the less fortunate. In this sense, your Organization can always count on the support and encouragement of the Holy See said the papal message.
The Pope said while the activity of the Fund bears witness that cooperation is more effective when it is guided by ethical principles of human coexistence, I have in mind first of all the methodology followed by IFAD, which gives ongoing development priority over mere assistance to the point of setting up forms of interest-free grants and loans, often choosing, as the primary beneficiaries, the “poorest of the poor”. The Pope pointed out that the Catholic Church in her teaching and her activity has always upheld the centrality of the worker on the land, urging concrete political and economic action in areas that affect him.
Pope Benedict said fifty years ago, the Second Vatican Council indicated that “some peoples could greatly improve upon the conditions of their life if they would change over from antiquated methods of farming to the new technical methods, applying them with needed prudence according to their own circumstances.
The Pope concluded saying that the Holy See has always regarded IFAD with esteem, and continues to do so, seeing it as an intergovernmental Institution capable of combining the principles of a just international order with effective solidarity. The Pope expressed the hope that IFAD may continue to work with ever greater determination for rural development and a commitment to help make the world more humane, as this alone will make it possible to look to the future with renewed confidence and hope .