No, he’s saying the cause of the food crisis is “in our attitudes”. The cause of the food crisis is in the willingness of certain governments to let their people starve in order to maintain power. That’s not “our attitudes”.
The 1st world has been very generous in aiding the 3rd world in food crises. But we’re not going to overthrow governments in order to make them feed their populations. If he thinks we should, he’s crazy.
Well, the willingness of certain governments to let people starve to maintain power is an “attitude”, right? That’s one of the attitudes he’s talking about that contributes to the food crisis.
That’s a tortured way of reading it. He’s castigating us, not Somali warlords.
A statement which describes such a broad range and number of individuals and views and desires with a dismissively monolithic term is profoundly ignorant by definition. Going further to ascribe motives to that straw monolith shows far more than mere ignorance, however profound. Going further than that, to deride them for failing to fit one’s own manufactured views of what should therefore be moral consistency is laughable.
I guess you missed “generally”. And where did I “ascribe motive”? And where did I “deride” them for this?
You sure do read a lot that isn’t there into a sentence.
He’s castigating everybody; the West with their materialist, consumerist, non-sustainable culture, and the Third World’s dictators who use food as a political weapon. He’s castigating a world that doesn’t respect human life because, “liberation from the yoke of hunger is the first concrete manifestation of the right to life, which – despite its having been solemnly proclaimed – is often very far from being fulfilled effectively.”
And that’s where he’s wrong. We have the food. We are trying to get it to the people who are starving. But we can’t because of the local [del]authorities[/del] thugs who won’t let it get to them.
The Pope is the Pope of the third world as well as of the first. When he says “us”, he means humanity, not just the portion of humanity who speaks English, or the portion that has white skin, or whatever.
Yes, when he says “us”, he means all of us. And he’s wrong. It’s not “all of us” who are at fault, it’s the Somali warlords and their ilk, not the West, who are trying to feed the starving, but are prevented from doing so by said warlords.
I haven’t had time yet to fully read the links supplied by Captain Amazing, but it’s possible the person on MSNBC this morning was Fr. Thomas Reese SJ. Here is one article of his on this subject. The SJ is an indication to me that his words and motivations must be carefully examined. I’ll discuss that further when I have more information.
As to your statement above, I have to agree that this is the immediate and pressing problem of hunger in the world today. However it is possible the Pope is speaking of broader issues that that. Some people believe that ‘globalization’ means corporate control of resources, and the Third World is being denied the opportunity to develop self sufficient agriculture. That would increase the ability of thugs, as well as politicians perceived to be legitimate to deny their people access to food. It also does little or nothing to free people from a life spent in financial servitude to global masters who determine the quality of life based on their overriding desire for profit.
I’m not presenting this as a full assessment of the situation, because I haven’t looked closely enough at the details. I’m merely stating a point of view held by some until I have enough information to form my own opinion on the subject.
However, I do feel that it is most important to deal with the immediate problem of hunger in the world caused by the thugs you mention. And then beyond that, there are still moral issues that remain concerning the future of the world and peoples right to be free from hunger beyond these immediate problems.
Are we? There’s a study that says that a third of the food grown each year, and 40% of the food in the US is wasted. That’s the “those who have many resources, using them often for ends other than food and even destroying them.”
Could you cite that study? Using food for other ends or destroying it does not mean that we aren’t trying to provide enough food for everyone on the planet.
There is no reason both can’t be true. You can try to send 50 metric tons of food to Somalia or you can send 5,000 metric tons, but if the warlords control the food and sell it for a profit, the result is the same. People without money starve.
Missed the edit window… but the fact is, how much food we “waste” is no indication, per se, of whether or not we are able to send sufficient food to the people in famine regions. We could waste 10x the food needed in the famine areas, but if we are still able to send them the food they need, then the “wasted” food is of no import in the equation. And everything I’ve read indicates that we are more than able to send the needed food. Do you ever read of an area not under the control of warlords like Somalia where famine or natural disaster isn’t mitigated by Western relief supplies?
Warlords which will get removed in an eyeblink if someone finds oil in Somalia.
There are plenty of starving people in the world who do not live in areas controlled by warlords. 20% of the children in the United States are in families below the poverty line, and a smaller (but shameful) number do not know where their next meal is coming from - and that’s in the richest country in the world where we throw away 40% of our food. Who do we blame that on?
And there are people who lack food all over the world, not just in Somalia or Appalachia. Whose fault is that if not “ours” (meaning all of us who have more than we need).
These people are not starving. There are a few exceptions where people are deliberately denying themselves or others food, making them warlords of a minimal magnitude. Food is cheap and plentiful in this country, and available to any and all who need it.
I am once again flummoxed by why anyone who isn’t a Catholic – so, you know, the majority of the planet – cares what the pope says in the first place … even when I agree with him.
I mean if he’s knocking it around over lunch with Cardinal Fang and the boys, that’s fine, but as a royal edict – or whatever the pope decrees – who cares?
I don’t care what the Pope says in that sense. But there are many people who do, and there are repercussions. As Chronos mentions, this could affect the way some Catholics vote. This could trigger other religions to take up the argument or take stances on the subject. This could also be a signal of a change of direction in the RC Church, or simply part of a marketing campaign on their part.
There’s a long list of people who’s statements and opinions mean nothing to me, but affect many people, and as a result affect the world I live in.
How is this a change in direction of the RC Church? It’s completely consistent with everything the Church has always said about wealth and the poor. It would be a big story, frankly, if the church came out with a defense of Wall Street or supply-side economics.