Porto Alegre, Brazil, Mar 8, 2006 / 22:00 pm
On Tuesday, Archbishop Janusz Bolonek, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to Uruguay, told members of a United Nations Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development that the world body must never consider the rural world of “secondary importance”, but must guarantee real opportunities for economic and societal development.
The conference, which is being held in Porto Alegre, Brazil through Friday, was conceived and organized by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
The archbishop told the assembly that the themes of the conference "are of vital importance to the human family and, as such, they also appeal directly to the Catholic Church which ... feels called to support the cause of human beings in all circumstances."
He also stressed the need--being addressed by the gathering--to "give fresh impulse to international solidarity in order to face the challenge presented by the development of peoples,” adding his support for a “compromise in favor of the growth of the rural world in order to guarantee humanity effective food security."