Feeding the hungry is moral obligation, pope says for World Food Day

Published: 2007-10-16

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Feeding the hungry is not simply a logistical and economic challenge, it is a moral obligation, Pope Benedict XVI said. In a message for the Oct. 16 celebration of World Food Day, sponsored by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the pope said that perhaps the failure to significantly reduce the rate of malnutrition in the world is due to the fact that too many people consider it a "technical and economic" problem. Individuals and nations, he said, must give priority to "the ethical dimension of feeding the hungry. This priority relates to the feeling of compassion and solidarity that is part of being human, leading to sharing with others not only material goods, but also (sharing) the love all of us need." In the message sent to Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Pope Benedict said, "Indeed, we give too little if we offer only material goods." The pope said studies of the situation of the world's 850 million hungry people demonstrate that a lack a food is not due only to natural factors such as drought, but is due "above all, to situations caused by human behavior," including wars that force people to flee their land and their homes.

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