Pope Francis backs campaign to end ‘scandal’ of world hunger

ossacidoq7641

Powerful address by Pope Francis, A billion people going hungry, while in the 1st world families put in the bin up to 20% of the good they buy.

time to put people before profit.


http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/12/10/pope-backs-caritas-campaign-to-end-scandal-of-world-hunger/

hinault

Companies like Cargill control food supply and have a huge bearing on food production world wide.

Companies such as those ought to be the first port of call in the war on food shortage.

Morbert

What do Christians think of the following cartoon?

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2413#comic

Manach

More of a Dilbert man myself. But from what I understand based on various news reports, the gist of the Pope's message is not against all capitialist per se, but instead against both the over-heated engine aspect that crashed the Western economics as well as the over-commercialisation of all our lives. That to instead focus on a sense of community and to divert some of the resources to appropriate causes to help the poor.

Peregrinus

I think the comic is a bit of a misrepresentation of Christian thinking on this issue.

The “rich young man” in Mk 10 who was told to sell all he had and give it to the poor wasn’t told that by way of suggesting that that it was needed to meet the needs of the poor. He was told it in answer to his question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”. So separating himself from material things was something he needed to do for himself, not for others.

You might agree with the advice given to him or disagree with it, and you might think that the advice was specific to the rich young man, or was universal, or was something in between. But you can’t pretend that this teaching is presented as a foundation for economic justice. It isn’t, and it hasn’t generally been understood in that way in the Christian tradition.

Suggesting that we either continue with the materialist capitalist neoliberal economic system that we have, or that we abolish markets, money, trade and everything else and live in a happy communist paradise is a false dichotomy; usually one employed by those who do well out of the current set-up and are reluctant to engage with criticisms of it. (Not that I’m suggesting that the artist behind this comic is so motivated.)

lazybones32

It is not a new response (the 2 popes before him said the same thing).
Mankind causes the hunger of his neighbour, not the scarcity of food, arable land or technology and husbandry.
I could start listing the various ways in which food is literally wasted - and denied to those in need - but I'd only agitate myself....which I don't want to do.

An interesting and relevant read "So Shall We Reap (How everyone who is liable to be born in the next ten thousand years could eat very well indeed; and why, in practice, our immediate descendants are likely to be in serious trouble)" - Colin Tudge

A mouthful of a title but a great read