BEIJING, MAY 25, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See appealed to political leaders to comply with the commitments assumed to guarantee food security.
The Vatican made its appeal at the Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, held here last week.
Addressing the assembly on behalf of the Holy See, Monsignor Renato Volante said: «It is to be hoped that your reflections will also inspire concrete measures to combat food insecurity, which has among its victims so many of our brothers and sisters.»
«Nothing will change in the world ambit if leaders of nations do not put into practice the commitments written in your plan of action to implement economic and food policies based not only on profit but also on solidarity,» the monsignor added.
«It seems that the situation of food security becomes ever more worrisome, the growth of systems of production ever more linked to large-scale methods, while environmental degradation increases which for the world of agriculture also means the impoverishment of the soil and scarcity of water,» the papal representative said.
«I would like to confirm the availability of the Catholic Church, in its different sectors and institutions, to cooperate in the activities of humanization in the realities of hunger, underdevelopment and poverty,» Monsignor Volante said.
He added: «In fact, in guaranteeing to each person the possibility of having adequate and qualitative levels of food security, each one of us becomes a participant in the great design of creation.»
