Vatican City, Nov 23, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Earlier today, Pope Benedict told a group of representatives from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), currently holding their 33rd conference, that dialogue and respect between cultures must be part of the international effort to curb hunger and poverty.
In his address to the group, which included Jacques Diouf, FAO’s general director, the Pope said that this first ever meeting "allows me to see at close hand your efforts in the service of a great ideal: that of liberating humanity from hunger."
He also expressed his "sincere appreciation for the programs which the FAO, in its diverse agencies, has carried out for the past sixty years, defending with competence and professionalism the cause of man, beginning precisely with the basic right of each person to be 'free of hunger'."
Pope Benedict also hit on the paradox that even as progress in the areas of the economy, science and technology continue, so too does the increase of poverty.