Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Pope Francis' Message for World Food Day 2013
VATICAN CITY, October 16, 2013 (Zenit.org) - On the occasion of the World
Food
Day, which this year has as theme: “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security
and Nutrition,” the Holy Father Francis sent to the Director General of the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a Message the text of
which was read by the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to FAO, Archbishop Luigi
Travaglino, in the course of the solemn ceremony held this morning at the Organization’s
headquarters in Rome.
* * *
THE HOLY FATHER’S MESSAGE
To Mr. Jose Graziano da Silva
Director General of FAO
The World Food Day places us before one of the most serious
challenges for humanity: that of the tragic condition in which millions of
hungry and malnourished people still live, among them many children. This
acquires even greater gravity at a time like ours, characterized by
unprecedented progress in many fields of science and ever greater possibilities
of communication.
It is a scandal that there is still hunger and malnutrition in the
world. It is not just a question of responding to immediate emergencies, but of
addressing together, in all areas, a problem that challenges our personal and
social conscience, to achieve a just and lasting solution. No one should be
obliged to abandon his country and his own cultural environment because of the
lack of essential means of subsistence. Paradoxically, at a time in which
globalization enables us to know the situations of need in the world and to multiply
exchanges and human relations, the tendency seems to be growing to
individualism and to shutting ourselves in on ourselves, which leads to a
certain attitude of indifference – at the personal, institutional and State
level – vis-a-vis those who are dying of hunger or suffer malnutrition, almost
as if it were an unavoidable fact. However, hunger and malnutrition can never
be considered a normal event to which one must become accustomed, as if it were
part of the system. Something has to change in ourselves, in our mentality, in
our societies. What can we do? I think that an important step is to bring down,
with determination, the barriers of individualism, of being shut-in on
ourselves, of the slavery of profit at all cost; and this, not only in the dynamic
of human relations, but also in the global economic and financial dynamic. I
think it is necessary, today more than ever, to educate ourselves in
solidarity, to rediscover the value and meaning of this very uncomfortable
word, often left to one side, and to make it become a background attitude in
decisions on the political, economic and financial plane, in relations between
persons, overcoming egoistic and partisan visions, in the end, we will also be
able to achieve the objective of eliminating forms of indigence determined by
the lack of food. A solidarity that is not reduced to different forms of
welfare, but which makes an effort to ensure that an ever greater number of
persons are economically independent. Many steps have been taken in different countries,
but we are still far from a world where all can live with dignity.
The topic chosen by FAO for this year’s celebration speaks of
“sustainable food systems for food security and nutrition.” I think I read in
it an invitation to rethink and renew our food systems from a perspective of
solidarity, overcoming the logic of unbridled exploitation of creation and
orienting better our commitment to cultivate and look after the environment and
its resources, to guarantee food security and progress towards sufficient and
healthy food for all. This implies a serious question on the need to really
change our lifestyle, including that of food, which in so many areas of the
planet is marked by consumerism, the waste and squandering of food. The data
furnished, in this connection, by FAO indicates that approximately one third of
the global production of food is not available because of ever greater losses
and wastefulness. It would be enough to eliminate them to reduce drastically
the number of hungry people. Our parents educated us in appreciating what we
receive and have, considered as a precious gift of God.
However, the waste of food is but one of the fruits of the “throw
away culture” which often leads to sacrificing men and women to the idols of profit
and consumption; a sad sign of the “globalization of indifference,” which makes
us “accustomed” slowly to the suffering of others, as if it were something
normal. The challenge of hunger and malnutrition does not just have an economic
or scientific dimension, which refers to the quantitative and qualitative
aspects of the food chain, but also and above all and ethical and
anthropological dimension. To educate in solidarity means , therefore, to
educate ourselves in humanity: to build a society that is truly human means to
always put the person and his/her dignity at the center, and never sell him/her
off cheaply to the logic of profit. The human being and his/her dignity are
“pillars on which to build shared rules and structures that, overcoming pragmatism
or the mere technical data are capable of eliminating divisions and of more
than satisfying the existing differences” (cf. Address to the Participants in
the 38th Session of FAO, June 20, 2013).
We are already at the doors of the International Year that, by
FAO’s initiative, will be dedicated to the rural family. This offers me the
opportunity to propose a third element for reflection: education in solidarity
and in a way of life that overcomes the “throw away culture” and really puts
every person and his/her dignity at the center, as is characteristic of the
family. From it, which is the first educational community, we learn to take
care of the other, the good of the other, to love the harmony of sustainable
creation. To support and protect the family so that it educates to solidarity
and to respect, is a decisive step in moving towards a more equitable and human
society.
The Catholic Church follows this path with you, aware that
charity, love , is the soul of her mission. May today’s celebration not be a
simple annual event but a real opportunity to urge us and institutions to act
according to a culture of encounter and solidarity, to give adequate answers to
the problem of hunger and malnutrition, as well as to other problems that
affect the dignity of every human being.
In formulating cordially my best wishes, Mr. Director General,
that FAO’s work is ever more effective, I invoke upon you, and upon all those
who collaborate in this fundamental mission, the Blessing of Almighty God.
Vatican, October 16, 2013
FRANCIS
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