Pope Benedict XVI:hunger and malnutrition were unacceptable

VATICAN CITY, Jun.10, 2008 (vaticans.org) - As world leaders were meeting in Rome to work out a response to the global food crisis, the Vatican weighed in on two levels -- morality and macroeconomics.

Pope Benedict XVI laid out the moral principles in a message June 3 to the World Food Security Summit, saying that hunger and malnutrition were unacceptable in a world that has sufficient levels of agricultural production and resources.

The pope said a chief cause of hunger was lack of solidarity with others, and he emphasized that protecting the right to life means helping to feed the hungry.

The pope also spoke of structural changes needed in the global agricultural economy, but he didn't get into particulars.

Those finer points, however, were examined in unusual detail in a little-noticed briefing paper produced by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

The document offered the Vatican's take on the mechanisms behind the food crisis headlines. On one of the most hotly debated issues today, it came down squarely against developing biofuels from food crops at a time of global hunger.

The document made several important points:

-- The current food crisis began in 2005, it said, and is extraordinary because the price increases have affected almost all agricultural products, have hit many countries and have endured over a long stretch of time.

-- The text identified circumstantial causes of the food crisis: bad weather in many cereal-producing countries, the rise in energy prices that make production and transportation more costly, and speculation by commodity investors who have bought low and sold high.

Some exporting countries, including Brazil, China and India, have begun stockpiling food and keeping it off the market, apprehensive that they will not be able to satisfy domestic needs. That practice has also helped drive up prices, the document said.

-- It also examined the structural causes of the crisis, and here things get a bit more complicated. The paper pointed to one important shift in developing countries: a lower demand for cereals and a higher demand for protein-rich foods. That has led to more land used to produce animal feed, and less for foods used in direct human consumption.

It said long-standing subsidies to agricultural producers in richer countries have artificially kept down the international price of food products and thus discouraged farming in poorer countries. The result has been large-scale abandonment of local agriculture and increasing urbanization. Today, most poor countries are net importers of food, making them highly vulnerable as prices continue to rise.

-- The effects of the food crisis are not equal: The weakest suffer the most, especially children and the urban poor. The document cited U.N. statistics showing that for every 1 percent increase in food prices, 16 million more people fall into "food insecurity." The way things are going, the number of chronically hungry in the world could rise to 1.2 billion by 2015.

-- The document called for reconsideration of the rush to biofuel development, at least during the current crisis. Governments are called to protect the right to nourishment, and it is "unthinkable" for them to diminish the quantity of food products in favor of nonessential energy needs, it said.

Moreover, it said, the "hijacking" of agricultural land for production of biofuel crops was being subsidized by governments, which represents an interference with the correct functioning of the global food market.

-- Emergency food aid is a necessary short-term measure, it said. But such aid, if continued for long periods of time, can actually aggravate the root problems of the food crisis by weakening local agricultural markets and the food autonomy of beneficiary countries.

-- On the other hand, the current boom in food prices could turn out to be an opportunity for agricultural growth in poorer countries, as long as farmers have the essentials: land, seed, fertilizer, water and access to markets.

While the food crisis seems to have crept up on much of the world, the Vatican has been warning about the hunger problem and market imbalances for years.

In a 1998 document on land reform, for example, the justice and peace council said the trend toward large landholding was strangling the future of local farming in developing countries.

When introducing their comments on the food crisis, the pope and Vatican offices consistently quote the words of Christ: "For I was hungry and you gave me food."

Today, the Vatican is saying that basic task has assumed new dimensions that make it more complex, but far from impossible.

Source:CNS

Pope Benedict XVI will not hold private meetings with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Vatican City, Jun. 2, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Pope Benedict XVI will not hold private meetings with any of the heads of state who are in Rome this week for a meeting of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), informed sources at the Vatican report.

By avoiding all meetings with visiting world leaders, the Vatican could sidestep diplomatic pressure for a papal audience with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian government has confirmed that Iran’s ambassador to the Holy See, Mohammad Javad Faridzadeh, had requested a papal audience for Ahmadinejad. For several days before that formal request, Iranian diplomats had been energetic in suggesting that Ahmadinejad would like to speak with the Pontiff.

In the past, visiting heads of state have arranged courtesy visits with the Pontiff while attending other events in Rome. But the heavy international pressure on Iran made it difficult to arrange such a meeting for Ahmadinejad without suggesting Vatican support for the . Iran has repeatedly sought to enlist Vatican support, in its bid to resist pressures from US.

Several other government leaders will be in Rome for this week's FAO meeting. Last week the Argentine government announced that President Cristina Kirchner will meet with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, rather than with the Pontiff. Kirchner's government has been seriously at odds with the Catholic hierarchy in Argentina, so in her case, too, a papal audience could have involved political complications.

Source:CWNews.com

Pope Benedict XVI's prayer banned in China

Beijing, May, 30, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Priests under house arrest; others forced to visit a Buddhist temple; others under surveillance for days, to prevent them from praying "with the pope"; dozens of faithful in Hong Kong warned not to go to Sheshan: this is the world in which some of the dioceses of China have experienced (or better: forcibly omitted) the World Day of Prayer for the Church in China instituted by Benedict XVI.

The day was suggested by the pope for last May 24, to coincide with the traditional pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin of Sheshan, near Shanghai.  The local government and the Patriotic Associations permitted the pilgrimage only for the priests and religious of the diocese of Shanghai, and prohibited the faithful of other Chinese communities from participating in it.

For this year, because of the pope's initiative, the diocese of Shanghai had been expecting at least 200,000 people.  But because of all of the limits imposed, only 2,500 faithful were able to visit the Marian shrine on May 24.

In order to enforce the prohibitions and bans, in some dioceses the police monitored or arrested official and underground priests.

According to information obtained by AsiaNews, underground Shanghai bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang and all of his clandestine priests were severely controlled or placed under house arrest since the beginning of May, to prevent them from participating.

About a dozen underground and official priests of Zhengding (Shijiazhuang, Hebei) were arrested on May 23, and not released until after May 25.  Some of them were forced to "take a trip" in the company of the police, or were forced to remain at home or in a hotel.

The official priests of the diocese of Shanbei (Shanxi) were forced to "take a trip" to a Buddhist temple in Shanxi, beginning on May 23.  They were not set free and allowed to return to their dioceses until May 25.

The priests of the diocese of Hohhot (Inner Mongolia) were required to meet with the police.  An official of the office for religious affairs ordered them "not to respond to the appeal of the pope of Rome", and prohibited them from making any public gesture of prayer for the Church in China for May 24.

In the diocese of Taiyuan (Shanxi), the Shrine of our Lady of Graces (Bansishan), a traditional pilgrimage destination, was closed by the local government.  On May 24, thousands of police blocked the access road to the shrine to stop the flow of pilgrims, who were forced to return home.  According to eyewitnesses, the police forces greatly outnumbered the pilgrims.

The priests of the diocese of Xuanhua (Hebei) were threatened with "serious consequences" if they should dare to carry out religious activities on May 24.  The same was done for the underground priests of Linqing (Shandong).

To this depressing picture must be added the hardships of 80 Catholics of Hong Kong, who were stopped in Shanghai and blocked from going to Sheshan.  The diocese of Hong Kong had originally planned a pilgrimage of 1,000 people for May 24.  But the difficulties and obstacles posed by the local government led Cardinal Zen to cancel the pilgrimage.  In spite of this, 80 people of the diocese went privately to Nanjing, and then to Shanghai.  From here, they hoped to obtain permission to go to Sheshan.  Instead, the group was blocked and prohibited even from celebrating Mass in the churches of Shanghai.  The police and the office for religious affairs threatened to revoke the license to operate in China from the travel agency that had planned the trip.

Some of the faithful interviewed by AsiaNews affirm that the restrictions and controls are connected to the tension created by the uprisings in Tibet, which are casting suspicion on any assembly of people.  But it is now also clear that there was an attempt to override a gesture called for by the pope, to create unity between the Church in China and the universal Church.

One underground Christian has told AsiaNews that there is a genuine "war" underway on the part of the Patriotic Association, against the instructions of the pope.  "The pope's letter [editor's note: published last June 30] condemns the interference of the PA in the life of the Church.  The secretaries of the PA are thus afraid of losing their privileges of control over the life and property of the Church.  For this reason, they are blocking the Holy Father's instructions any way they can".

"All of this", he adds, "hurts China: is this the kind of religious freedom that the Chinese government is presenting to the world, a few months from the Olympics? If China wants the respect of the international community, before all else it must respect its people's right to religious freedom".

Source:Asianews

Pope Benedict XVI argued that a democratic state should support Catholic schools

Vatican City, May. 29, 2008 (vaticans.org) - In a May 29 talk to the Italian bishops' conference, Pope Benedict XVI argued that a democratic state should support Catholic schools.

Since the government invests resources in many different projects, the Holy Father reasoned, "there does not appear to be any justification for excluding adequate support for the work of Church institutions in the field of education." Public investment in Catholic schools, he said, "could not fail to produce beneficial effects" for secular society.

The Italian bishops are holding their 58th general assembly in Rome this week, with the meetings taking place in the Vatican Synod hall. The Pope spoke to the bishops about the main topics for this meeting: education and evangelization.

Italy today faces an "educational crisis," the Pope warned, raising a theme that he has mentioned frequently during his pontificate. The Pontiff has repeatedly spoken about the need to provide young people with adequate moral and cultural formation. From the Catholic perspective, he said, the educational crisis involves "the transmission of the faith to new generations."

Educators and pastors must battle with a culture of relativism, which "puts God within parentheses and discourages all true commitment," the Pope told the Italian hierarchy. To overcome that sort of opposition, he said, the Church needs to muster greater "evangelical energy" and to demonstrate the joy of faith.

The Pope said that he could see signs of a desire for change in Italian society-- signs of a new willingness to recognize the need for moral integrity and commitment. The Church has a special role to play in that societal recovery, he said, adding: "No other human and social problem can truly be solved if God does not return to the center of our lives."

While recognizing the autonomy of the secular political world, the Pope told the prelates that "it is important to resist all tendencies to consider religion, and in particular Christianity, as a purely private matter." He urged the bishops to continue their efforts to support marriage and family life, and to act as advocates the poor in Italy and around the world.

In other news, the Holy See has confirmed that on June 6, Pope Benedict will receive Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in a private audience. The Pope and Berlusconi last met on November, 19, 2005 during a previous Berlusconi term as prime minister.

Pope addressed today to the bishops of the episcopal conference of Myanmar

Vatican City (vaticans.org) - Benedict XVI hopes that, thanks to agreements concluded with the government of Myanmar, the international community and "all who are ready to help" may bring to the victims of cyclone Nargis "the type of assistance required and enjoy effective access to the places where it is needed most". And "may God open the hearts of all so that a concerted effort may be made to facilitate and coordinate the ongoing endeavour to bring relief to the suffering and rebuild the country's infrastructure".

Help for the people struck by the catastrophe was, naturally, central to the thoughts that the pope addressed today to the bishops of the episcopal conference of Myanmar, received this morning after previous meetings in separate audiences, on the occasion of their five-year visit "ad Limina Apostolorum".

The Church of Myanmar, in the words of the pope, "is known and admired for its solidarity with the poor and needy. This has been especially evident in the concern you have shown in the aftermath of the cyclone Nargis". Benedict XVI praised in particular the actions of Catholic organisations and associations.  "I am confident", he continued, citing his first encyclical, "that under your guidance, the faithful will continue to demonstrate the possibility of establishing 'a fruitful link between evangelization and works of charity'". "During these difficult days, I know how grateful the Burmese people are for the Church’s efforts to provide shelter, food, water, and medicine to those still in distress".

Turning his attention more exclusively to Church affairs, the pope then expressed his satisfaction with the growth of vocations, of both religious sisters and priests, and recommended a "robust and dynamic Christian formation" of all the faithful, inspiring them to take action in their workplace, family, and society.

Benedict XVI finally encouraged, for the majority Buddhist country, the development in mutual respect of "ever better relations with Buddhists for the good of your individual communities and of the entire nation".

Source: Asianews

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