Take a few minutes to read the remarkable message from the Pope to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in commemoration of 2016 World Food Day. His words elevate the pursuit of global food security from a weathered PR slogan to a spiritual and moral imperative. Some of the passages are truly inspired.  

“The responses to be put into effect must be suitably planned, and cannot be the fruit of emotion or fleeting motives.”

“It is important to plan them. In this task, an essential role is played by the institutions called upon to work together, inasmuch as the action of individuals, while necessary, becomes effective only if framed in a network made up of people, public and private bodies, and national and international apparatuses. This network, however, cannot remain anonymous; this network is fraternity, and must act on the basis of its fundamental solidarity.”

“…this network is fraternity, and must act on the basis of its fundamental solidarity.”

And this…

“From the wisdom of rural communities we can learn a style of life that can help defend us from the logic of consumerism and production at any cost, a logic that, cloaked in good justifications, such as the increasing population, is in reality aimed solely at the increase of profit.”