(Vatican Radio) Below is the intervention given by Cardinal Peter Turksen on the
first day of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Working Group on “Bread and
Brain, Education and Poverty” which takes place in the Vatican from 4-6 November 2013
With
greetings from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, I am glad and honoured
to open this Working Group of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, dedicated to a study
of the topic: “Bread and Brain, Education and Poverty” and wish you great success.
The
four terms of the title, skilfully set out as a chiasmus, causally relate Hunger
and Poverty to Education. They refer to the situation, both tragic
and scandalous, of millions of impoverished human beings who lack nourishment
for body, mind and spirit, that is, both food and education.
Indeed, Bread
and Brain, Education and Poverty reminds us that the intrinsic correlation between
brain development and nourishment inspired the close sequence of the first two Millennium
Development Goals, namely, the elimination of extreme poverty and hunger, and universal
primary education. In response, school feeding programmes have sprung up around
the globe, in developed and developing countries.
Furthermore, these days
of study embody a wish to apply the fruits of brain activity, including scientific
research, biological and other technologies and social innovation, to food
production and to poverty alleviation.
Describing these various senses, dear
Friends, provides a small taste of how ramified and related it is with other areas
of study and concerns of human existence. Ultimately, our topic broaches the issue
of basic rights and needs, the issue of human dignity and the issue
of justice and peace. Indeed, for Pope Benedict XVI, “the elimination
of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding
the peace and stability of the planet.”
Malnutrition of mind and body
– lack of food and lack of learning – is a horrendous double helix. It must be addressed
with great urgency, but not only by sound scientific research and solid social policies
in order to achieve real improvements in education, food production and distribution,
sustainable agriculture and nutrition security. As a coefficient of development or
under-development, it must be addressed, above all, with a rediscovered sense of Christian
humanism, characterised by solidarity and brotherhood .
The Pontifical Academy
of the Sciences has invited an impressive interdisciplinary group of international
experts to explore these issues with both competence and serious commitment.
My
prayer is that your lively conversation at this Working Group may contribute
to the essential larger dialogue, as Gaudium et Spes taught: “The Church
sincerely professes that all [people], believers and unbelievers alike, ought to work
for the rightful betterment of this world in which all alike live; such an ideal cannot
be realized, however, apart from sincere and prudent dialogue.” This dialogue must
address many obstacles of different kinds that are retarding a fair global solution
to the problems of poverty and hunger, whose main root is first and finally the lack
of brotherhood among persons and peoples.
Let us bring our best energies
to the common task in the greatest spiritual freedom, as Pope Francis insisted in
his Message to the Food and Agricultural Organization: “To move forward constructively
and fruitfully in the different functions and responsibilities involves the ability
to analyze, understand, and engage, leaving behind the temptations of power, wealth
or self-interest and instead serving the human family, especially the needy and those
suffering from hunger and malnutrition.”
As we read in the Preface to the Working
Group’s Programme, in the Lord’s Prayer we address not “my” but
“our” Father, we plead not for “my” but for “our” daily bread. By saying
“our” and praying on behalf of everyone who shares a single common origin in
God our Creator, we engage ourselves to take up the task of producing and distributing
food and of making education available to all his sons and daughters, to all our brothers
and sisters.
May the Church thus accompany the poor, “providing for their
most urgent needs, defending their rights and working together with them to build
a society founded on justice and peace.” And may a new double helix of nutrition and
learning become part of our human makeup, thanks to this Working Group whose labours
we entrust to the Almighty.