Rome, Italy, Nov 16, 2009 / 20:06 pm
On Monday Pope Benedict XVI addressed a gathering at the World Summit on Food Security in Rome, calling hunger “the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty” and stating that “the Catholic Church will always be concerned for efforts to defeat hunger.”
Speaking at the United Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, the Pope addressed food production and the current state of the global economy.
“The international community is currently facing a grave economic and financial crisis. Statistics bear witness to the dramatic growth in the number of people suffering from hunger,” said the Pontiff. This situation is “made worse by the rise in price of foodstuffs, the reduction in economic resources available to the poorest peoples, and their limited access to markets and to food,” he lamented.
However, despite the grave statistics and the fretting of population control advocates, the Holy Father made reference to “the known fact that the world has enough food for all its inhabitants.”