Pope: International community should ensure food for all

Renewed compassion and humanity towards one another as well as "the duty of solidarity and commitment to justice" must become the international community's goals to ensure that there is daily bread for all, Pope Benedict XVI said in a recent message to Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The Pontiff's letter was issued in honor of World Food Day, Oct. 16.

He said: "The future of the human family is in need of a new impulse to overcome present fragilities and uncertainties. Although we live in a global dimension, there are evident signs of the profound division between those who lack daily sustenance and those who have many resources, using them often for ends other than food and even destroying them."

The Pontiff stressed that agricultural work must not be considered a secondary activity, but as the objective of every strategy of growth and integral development.

He continues: "This is still more important if we keep in mind that the availability of foods is increasingly conditioned by the volatility of prices and sudden climatic changes."

His entire statement was posted earlier this week by the Catholic Climate Covenant, a project of The Catholic Coalition on Climate Change.

This week's posting also includes the link to an article about the Society of Jesus' work in adopting sustainability as a major part of its ministries. Jesuit colleges, along with other Catholic institutions of higher learning, have taken up sustainability as part of their Catholic mission, according to America Magazine.

Editor-in-chief Fr. Drew Christiansen writes: "Environmental injustice exacts enormous costs from its victims, who are often the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. What's more, claiming environmental justice from powerful vested interests demands painful sacrifices from its advocates."