During his pontificate, Pope Francis has ardently pleaded with the world to address the dire situation around the world’s food supply. Keeping in line with his simple and pragmatic nature, he proposes that everyone make one simple change that can make a major impact: reducing food waste.
“Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry,” he said.
Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tons — is wasted. That is enough to feed all those who struggle or die from hunger. In the United States alone, 40% of all food is thrown away and never eaten.
“This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition,” the Pope said.
“Once our grandparents were very careful not to throw away any leftover food. Consumerism has led us to become used to an excess and daily waste of food, to which, at times we are no longer able to give a just value.”
In an unprecedented move, Pope Francis personally spoke today at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, where he marked World Food Day by calling for governments to work together to address the problem of hunger. Drawing a standing ovation, he said that population control is not the answer, but instead, a change in lifestyle and the use of resources.
“We cannot make do by saying ‘someone else will do it,” said Pope Francis
Right now, almost 900,000,000 people struggle with hunger every day. Every single second, a person dies from hunger. This is a tragedy of mind-numbing proportions. While many in the west throw food away without a second thought, people are literally dying. But, as Pope Francis said, you cannot expect someone else to address the issue.
To help the poor and hungry get access to life-saving nutrition, The Pontifical Mission Societies have created MISSIO, a new and innovative Catholic crowd-funding platform that allows you to directly assist Catholic missions and projects all over the world.
MISSIO allows you to search through life-giving and life-saving projects – ones providing for basic needs, others extending the Good News of the Gospel to remote areas, and still more, bringing the light of the Lord’s loving-kindness to those in the darkest circumstances. With MISSIO, you can choose one of these missions of Pope Francis and donate directly to them, knowing that 100% of your donation will go directly there. You can also share them on social media and reignite the discussion and remind people of these forgotten situations, so others can support the projects also.
Launched by Pope Francis himself, the MISSIO platform offers a direct connection to change-makers who work on the “front lines” making a difference for the poor and forgotten through direct, daily service.
There are opportunities to help the Daughters of Mary fight malnutrition in Tanzania, start a pig farm in Cameroon, or help Catholic priests and Sisters bring food to those affected by famine and war in South Sudan.
MISSIO is powered by The Pontifical Mission Societies, the Catholic Church’s official support organization for overseas missions since 1822, providing for a global network of people who are making a difference for communities in need around the globe.
Remember the words of Isaiah 58:10:
If you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
Check out MISSIO today and start giving!
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://ucatholic.com/blog/pope-francis-said-doing-this-is-like-stealing-from-the-poor/&media=https://ucatholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/PopeWorldFoodDay.png&description=This one common thing, that you likely do every day, is "like stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry" said Pope Francis){kind=link}
I’m sorry, the problem is not a lack of food. There is plenty of food. There is so much food we are growing corn for fuel instead of food now. The problem is areas of the world where food is not allowed to get to hungry people. This is a big problem in Africa, in areas controlled by warlords who are engaged in religious or ethnic cleansing. You can’t get your half-eaten sandwich to a hungry person in time before it begins to go bad, and unless the person were starving they wouldn’t want it.
Seems to me the Pope needs bombers.
Seed bombers.
There is an obvious way to solve both global warming and the hunger problem at the same time: Increase the biomass of native edible plants.
We should be loading up bombers with the seeds of native edibles and dropping them from 30,000 feet. Let the warlords try to control the food supply when every drainage ditch, every roof, every parking lot, every desert is turning green growing food. Let’s see how long atmospheric carbon can hold out at its present level when there is three times the biomass absorbing it than there is now.
Care for our common home= return to Eden.
Absolutely right! Get rid of dictator and socialist forms of government that do not encourage production of food and other necessities which the people need!
I have heard this my whole childhood. It didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now. I used to watch the kids grow the food into the trash after school lunch and think about it. If it’s not in the trash, where is it? In the stomach? Maybe in the pantry? Maybe still on store shelves? It’s so unrelated. Say we take only exactly what we eat and it stays stocked in the store. How does that help hungry kids eat? The store doesn’t donate the drop in sales to kids in China. Stores will stock less. Farms will produce less or sell to more businesses. Or add new crops. None of this, not one of these factors, effect the hungry children. It’s not related. How about, “Be grateful you can eat. When you grow up fight for wealth equality. Learn how poor people are oppressed, and try to help remove barriers to success.” LOL.
Our society is wasteful. As individuals, with awareness, we can decide not to waste food and other resources. Then we would have more money because we would spend less on wasted food and would be able to donate to programs to help feed starving people or maybe even have time and money to afford a mission trip to witness how we can share with others. Why spend money on good food to simply throw it in the trash? It defies logic, but as a teacher I see it daily… I tell kids “don’t throw it out; take it home so your parents know you aren’t eating it and they might stop spending their hard-earned money on it.” I don’t see the disconnect at all…it’s definitely related. Overconsumption is a symptom of our consumer/materialistic society. Most of us could live with less and think of others more.
A practical response: Buy less/waste less. It’s not the spoiling left-overs from your refrigerator that go directly to the poor. The money we save by not wasting allows us to give more to charity.
Carolyn, maybe it will help to rephrase what Pope Francis has said. “We know how much we only need. Let’s only procure what we need and donate what we save to help the poor.”
I’d like him to tell us whether throwing away food should keep us from the Eucharist!
Just make up your mind not to be wasteful. The change is all that matters and it starts with each and every one of us.
[…] Source: ucatholic.com […]
Comment:save your waste to help the poor.
Food is sacred. It comes from the toil of many laborers.
people can eat less and give the difference to a charity that provides food for the hungry. How many Americans can easily do without a hamburger a month and send that money somewhere? It’s too little to affect American companies yet a huge difference for those who are hungry.
a serious matter to be looked into
a serious matter
The problem is all the insanely corrupt governments in the world. More Big Government = More Starving people in the world.
the pope is an idiot there is plenty of food to go around the one to blame are the head of states and warlord on those countries
jorge, you are also much of an idiot yourself!
We can do a lot when we support various agencies like Children Believe, Elimu Development projects, Monastery of Mount Carmel and many others who help in various worldwide countries. I’ve listed those I know in Canada. There must be many organizations in the US. Just 10.00 a month does incredible help to children and families who need it.
This is a difficult subject that does scream for assistance. Unfortunately we have criminals in the Vatican that took Peter’s Pence donations from Catholics around the world and purchased real estate and tried to hide the fact. These were Cardinals lining their own pockets causing people in need to go without. Pope Francis knows about this. Cardinal Pell needs to be reinstated as head of the Vatican Bank, Cardinal Pell knows where the financial skeletons are buried. They tried to character assassinate Cardinal Pell on two occasions resulting in him being sent to jail by a corrupt court in Victoria Australia. The conviction was quashed in the Australian High Court with all the Judges delivering a scathing tongue lashing to the Victorian Courts system, in particular the presiding Judge came in for scathing criticism and also the police for their part in the frame up. Cardinal Pell had returned to Australia to defend his name. He could have claimed diplomatic immunity and stayed in the Vatican. He didn’t do that. No criminal would return to defend their name. That is a characteristic of an innocent man.
There is a problem in the poorer countries with their Christian populations being harassed by militant Islamist’s denying food to Christians unless they convert to Islam. Many are executed for not complying with apostatizing. No one is confronting these aggressors nor does the UN offer to send armed soldiers to deliver the food and medicine needed by our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Finding an answer is very difficult. There is financial corruption in the Vatican and Pope Francis knows about it. He hasn’t even launched an independent criminal investigation. Cardinal Pell received death threats while doing an internal audit. He created a Dead Man’s switch which would send the evidence collected so far if he were murdered. That is why he is still alive and Pope Francis stood back and did nothing. There is a nasty cloud over this Papacy and I am hoping it all gets resolved and the Church can once more flourish once the criminal element is removed from the positions of power that they now occupy. Rampant homosexuality in the hierarchy needs to be dealt with. The clergy involved need to be removed and laicized. The Church can’t function properly with predators of children actively predating on our children. No money should be donated until there is evidence of change. Persecuting the Latin Rite needs to stop. It is not legal or Catholic to dismember a rite of worship that has been in use for hundreds and hundreds of years. These people are harming no one. The campaign to ban the Latin Rite is viscous and spite filled. God is happy with BOTH RITES. I attend Novus Ordo exclusively and have no problem with Catholics having choice and freedom of worship. Fix these problems and the Church will flourish.
The Catholic Church should really look at itself. Money that is donated for the poor the church keeps 90% of it. The church is actually stealing from the poor.