Reply To: The Pope
Francis condemned unfair access to food around the world as “perverse” on Thursday, saying it threatened disaster for humanity if not remedied.
“Few have too much and many have little,” he said.
“Many do not have food and are adrift while the few are drowning in the superfluous,” said the pope, “This perverse tendency of inequality is disastrous for the future of humanity.”
In the pope’s home continent Latin America, the number of people in extreme poverty increased in 2017 to the highest in almost a decade despite improvements in social spending policies.
“They live precarious situations: the air is flawed, the natural resources are depleted, the rivers polluted, the soil is acidified,” Francis said of the world’s most disadvantaged. “They do not have enough water for themselves or their crops, their sanitary infrastructures are very deficient, their housing scarce and defective.”
Francis said it was “paradoxical” that many of the more than 820 million people suffering hunger and malnutrition live in rural areas where most food is produced.
The global exodus from rural to urban areas was worrying, he added.