{"id":403,"date":"2013-10-25T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T15:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2013\/10\/pope-francis-says-hungry-bellies-stem-from-greedy-gullets.html"},"modified":"2013-12-06T18:02:56","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T22:02:56","slug":"pope-francis-says-hungry-bellies-stem-from-greedy-gullets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2013\/10\/pope-francis-says-hungry-bellies-stem-from-greedy-gullets.html","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis says hungry bellies stem from greedy gullets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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Pope francis has been challenging me recently. Last week in his message to\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jos\u00e9 Graziano da Silva, Pope Francis stated:<\/i><\/span>\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHunger and malnutrition can never be considered a normal occurrence that we should be become used to, as if it were part of the system\u201d\u00a0<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Critiquing the\u00a0<\/span>\u201ctragic living conditions of millions of hungry and malnourished people, including numerous children,\u201d h<\/i>e went on to say:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
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\u201cIt is a scandal that there is still hunger and malnutrition in the world! Not only must we respond to immediate emergencies, but face together, at all levels, a problem that challenges our personal and social awareness, to bring about a just and lasting solution\u2026.\u00a0<\/span>Nobody should be forced to leave their land and their cultural environment for the lack of the essential means of subsistence! Paradoxically, at a time when globalization makes it possible to know of the situations of need in world and increase exchanges and human relationships, the tendency to individualism and profit at all cost seems to be growing, which leads to an attitude of indifference \u2013 on a personal level as well as that of institutions and states \u2013 to those who die of hunger or suffer malnutrition, as if it were an inescapable fact\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/i>But hunger and malnutrition can never be considered a normal occurrence that we should be become used to, as if it were part of the system. Something \u2013 continues the statement \u2013 must change in ourselves, in our minds, in our societies. What can we do? I think one important step is to decidedly break down the barriers of individualism, of closure, our slavery to profit at all costs and this not only in the dynamics of human relationships, but also in the global economic and financial dynamics.\u201d \u201cSolidarity cannot \u201cbe reduced to the various forms of assistance,\u201d but \u201cmust work to ensure that an increasing number of people can be financially independent\u2026<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m convicted by Pope Francis\u2019 message\u2026 we think of hunger as something other people deal with but don\u2019t look at the ways we contribute to the cycles that cause it<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>So what is the reality of hunger in the world today?\u00a0Here are the latest statistics on Hunger from the <\/span>World Food Programme<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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  1. 842 million people<\/strong>\u00a0in the world do not have enough to eat. This number has fallen by 156 million since 1990.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The vast majority of hungry people\u00a0(827 million) live in developing countries<\/strong>, where 14.3 percent of the population is undernourished.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. \u00a0Asia has the\u00a0largest share of the world\u2019s hungry<\/strong>\u00a0people (some 552 million) but the trend is downward.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. \u00a0If\u00a0women<\/strong>\u00a0farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be\u00a0reduced by up to 150 million<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Poor nutrition causes\u00a0nearly half (45%) of deaths<\/strong>\u00a0in children under five \u2013 3.1 million children each year.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. One out of six children \u2014 roughly 100 million \u2014 in developing countries is\u00a0underweight<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. One in four of the world\u2019s\u00a0children are stunted<\/strong>. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. 80 percent of the world\u2019s stunted children\u00a0live in just 20 countries<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. 66 million primary school-age\u00a0children attend classes hungry\u00a0<\/strong>across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. WFP calculates that\u00a0US$3.2 billion<\/strong>\u00a0is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    The number of people who still hunger in the world today is sobering and deeply convicting to Catholics, like myself, who live with more than enough to eat. I particularly appreciated the encouragement to make addressing hunger an effort that goes beyond emergency assistance, and actually adress the systems that\u00a0impact\u00a0hunger. <\/span>\n

    Hunger is one of the most\u00a0devastating\u00a0examples of the fall out from the sacrifice of men and women to the \u201cidols of money and consumption,\u201d as the holy father so wisely put it <\/span>elsewhere<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/span><\/div>\n


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    Unfortunately, the cause of\u00a0hunger\u00a0in the world today is cloaked in the very models of distribution that I participate in every day. I am grateful for this reflection and hope to see the pope to continue to urge us to end hunger through Prayer, and Charity, but also by\u00a0addressing\u00a0the systems that cause hunger, which are the most difficult to address, but the most important to change.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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    This is a\u00a0<\/span>consistent\u00a0message sent by the Pope, who had previously criticized the global community for their systemic\u00a0<\/span>pursuit\u00a0of money through food, at the cost of the dignity and rights of those who continue to suffer from hunger and malnutrition. See his comments below.<\/span><\/p>\n