The Pope's lost battle

This battle was not given front-page coverage in our newspapers and consequently I think most of the readers of this page have not read anything or seen any coverage about it.

Pope Benedict XVI has not lost a round during the current discussions with the conservative Society of St Pius V. He was not snubbed by the Anglicans, nor was he outwitted by liberal theologians. Had the Pope been defeated on any of these counts it would not have mattered a lot. The Church is quite accustomed to such setbacks.

The Pope's defeat was a serious one because its consequences go beyond the Church. His defeat is the defeat of millions of people around the world. His defeat is the defeat all those men and women of good will who struggle for a more just and better world.

It was very unfortunate that despite Pope Benedict's plea to "win the battle against hunger and malnutrition in the world as quickly as possible", participants in an international summit convened by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation removed from their final statement any pledge to end hunger by 2025. Quite naturally, the Pope was not alone in his stand. He was, in fact, supporting the FAO's efforts.

In his strong-worded speech on November 16, the Pope said that "hunger is the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty", and that "opulence and waste are no longer acceptable when the tragedy of hunger is assuming ever greater proportions".

The Pope challenged the myth that hunger is the result of world population growth. He described as a "known fact" that the world has enough food for all its inhabitants, and insisted that "there is no cause-and-effect relationship between population growth and hunger".

There are people who, when faced by world hunger, say that the poor need contraceptives more than food. They want to eliminate the poor, not poverty!

Throughout his speech, Pope Benedict showed that the real problem lies in the existence of unjust economic and distribution systems. He condemned the influence of avarice on the world's system of food distribution, the deliberate destruction of foodstuffs to prop up prices, the attempts to wring profits from emergency-relief efforts, and the failure to answer the pressing needs of the thousands facing starvation or malnutrition.

Today's prevailing system, he said, "demeans the person, disrupts the environment, and damages society".

Society is damaged whenever any of its members are denied their basic needs to live a dignified human life.

We are lucky that, thanks to the advanced system of social assistance that exists in our country, hunger is something that we read about from afar. On the other hand, we should be conscious of the problems that many among us have to face each day.

Recently I read a newspaper report that disturbed me no end. It said there are children in our schools that are not given lunch because their parents cannot afford it or do not care to provide it. For the same reason, they are not sent on school outings and find it impossible to pay for the 'extra' services provided in our schools.

These children must suffer a lot when they notice that they do not have what the other children have. The report referred to teachers and school heads who take it upon themselves to provide what is necessary. Their efforts and initiatives are most praiseworthy.

We cannot have children divided into haves and have-nots, especially while they are at school. Everything should be done to prevent our children from experiencing such pain and degradation.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt