Pontiff condemns use of hunger as a weapon of war during visit to UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome
Pope Leo has made an urgent appeal to global leaders to end world hunger, saying in a speech to a UN agency that allowing millions to go without food each day represented “an ethical derailment”.
In a visit to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, the pontiff also condemned the use of hunger as a weapon of war, without naming specific conflicts or countries.
Leo cited UN data that revealed about 673 million people were not eating enough each day, calling that number “the clear sign of a prevailing insensitivity, of a soulless economy … and of an unjust and unsustainable system of resource distribution”.
He added: “In a time when science has lengthened life expectancy, allowing millions of human beings to live – and die – struck by hunger is a collective failure, an ethical derailment, a historic offence.”
