(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday appealed to the international community not only to guarantee enough production and fair distribution of food for all but also to ensure the right of every human being to feed himself according to his needs without being forced to leave his home and loved ones.
He made the call at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO ) in Rome, where he marked World Food Day , which this year has as its theme, “Change the future of migration. Invest in Food Security and rural development.” ( Click here for the video of the Pope’s FAO visit )
Conflicts and climate-change
Addressing the UN’s specialized agency that leads the international community’s fight against hunger and malnutrition in the world, the Pope urged governments to work together to end the conflicts and climate-change related disasters that force people to leave their homes in search of their daily bread. Citing the 2016 Paris climate accord in which governments committed themselves to combatting global warming, the Pope who spoke in Spanish, regretted that “unfortunately some are distancing themselves from it.”
He noted that negligence and greed over the world’s limited resources are harming the planet and its most vulnerable people, forcing many to abandon their homes in search of work and food. He called for a change in lifestyle and the use of resources, adding it cannot be left for others to do.
World hunger
A UN report in September pointed out that the number of chronically hungry people in the world was growing once more after a decade of decline because of ongoing conflicts and floods and droughts triggered by climate change. While the 815 million chronically undernourished people last year is still below the 900 million registered in 2000, the UN warned that the increase is cause for great concern.
Love, fraternity, solidarity
Describing population control as a “false solution” to tackling hunger and malnutrition in the world, Pope Francis said what is needed instead is a better management of the earth’s abundant resources and prevention of waste in food and resources. What is needed, he said, is a new model of international cooperation based on love, fraternity and solidarity that respond to the needs of the poorest. Pity, he pointed out, is limited to emergency aid, but love inspires justice that is needed to bring about a just social order.
As a token of his visit and message, Pope Francis gifted to the UN food agency a marble sculpture of Aylan , the three-year-old Syrian toddler of Kurdish origin, whose image in the media made global headlines after his body washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015 after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. The Vatican explained that the sculpture featuring a weeping angel over the little boy’s corpse, symbolized the tragedy of migration.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Bishop Emmanuel Lafont of Cayenne in French Guyana reacted with joy when he heard Pope Francis ’s announcement of a Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region.
French Guyana and Suriname are part of the Amazon territory together with Guyana, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil.
As well as being an essential ‘lung’ for the entire planet as Pope Francis said when he made the announcement, the six million square kilometers that define the region are home to indigenous tribes and even uncontacted peoples whose cultures and whose very existences are threatened by large-scale logging, mining and other industrial projects as well as by pollution and climate change
Speaking to Vatican Radio Bishop Lafont said he is very grateful to Pope Francis for having called this Synod.
Listen :
“I am very happy, grateful to the Holy Father for having called this Synod which is most important” he said.
For the benefit of the indigenous peoples
First of all, Bishop Lafont continued “for the benefit of the indigenous people – the First Nations – of the Amazonian region, because they have a long history, for the past 500 years of submission, of exploitation, of misunderstanding.”
For the protection of Creation
The second reason for which he is grateful, the Bishop said, that “the Amazon is one of the most important regions in the world for the protection of Creation” and it is currently facing many challenges.
“The Church, he said, ought to speak even more loudly for the protection of the region, and for the sake of the protection of the whole world”.
(from Vatican Radio)…