The Pope asks that military expenditures become investments to combat hunger

Pope Francis demanded this Wednesday that the “enormous military expenditures” be converted into investments to combat hunger in the world, in a message on his social networks on the occasion of World Food Day.

“In war the worst side of man emerges: selfishness, violence, lies. Let us reject the logic of weapons and convert the enormous military expenditures into investments to combat hunger, the lack of health care and education,” he wrote in X .

On the other hand, Francis also sent a message on this day to the director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu, who is holding his ‘World Food Forum’ until next Friday.

In the message, read by the Vatican representative to that institution, Fernando Chica Arellano, the pope points out that international political and economic leaders must listen to “the demands of the bottom of the food chain, like small farmers.

“May we never postpone truly listening to the needs that come from below, from workers and farmers, from the poor and hungry, and from those who They live with difficulties in isolated rural areas“said the pontiff.

The FAO forum will discuss sustainable agri-food systems forensure the right to food in the futuresomething that the Pope described as “priority, since it satisfies one of the basic needs of the human being, that is, to eat to live in accordance with adequate qualitative and quantitative standards, which guarantee the dignified existence of the human person.”

But he regrets that this right is “frequently undermined and not applied fairly.”

Bergoglio agreed with the FAO that seeks “a transformation of food systems that takes into account the plurality and variety of nutritious, affordable, healthy and sustainable foods as a means to achieve food security and healthy diets for all.

“Energetic solutions to confront and resolve the food problems of our time require that we consider the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity as the foundations of our development programs and projects,” he asserted.

The pope urgently called for “effective measures to lead a better life, acting together animated by the same spirit of fraternity and knowing that this planet that God has given us must be a garden open to serene coexistence.” EFE