Addressing a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on Sept 20, Archbishop Paul R Gallagher, the Vatican's foreign minister, said today the "entire international community, more than ever, cannot surrender itself and let this issue pass in silence."

"The solution to the war in Ukraine is not only a matter for Ukraine itself," he said. "All member states of the United Nations, and especially those of the Security Council, are called upon to join efforts in the search for a just and lasting peace for Ukraine as an important element of the global peace of which the world thirsts."

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"Closed and conflicting — but powerful — economic interests have prevented us from designing a food system that responds to the values of the common good, solidarity and the ‘culture of encounter,'" the pope said.

The message was read on July 26 at a preparatory meeting in Rome for the UN Food Systems Summit to be held in September.

"Our poorest brothers and sisters, and the earth, our common home that ‘cries out for the damage we inflict on it through irresponsible use and abuse of the goods God has placed in it,' demand radical change," the pope said.

Family farms and other small farming operations are a place to start.

The rural sector of the local and global economy provides so much of the food people consume.

Still, people living in rural areas and working the land are rarely a priority in political and economic decision making, he said in the message read by Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister.

Francis decried as criminal the existence of hunger in a world that can produce enough food for all.

This built on a warning from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that climate change and conflict are a consequence and driver of poverty and income inequality.

"Poverty, income inequality and the high cost of food continue to keep healthy diets out of the reach of some 3 billion people," Guterres said. "Climate change and conflict are both consequences and drivers of this catastrophe."

"We have a responsibility to realize the dream of a world where bread, water, medicine and work flow in abundance and reach the most needy first," Pope Francis wrote.

"The Holy See and the Catholic Church will place themselves at the service of this noble goal, offering their contribution, joining forces and wills, actions and wise decisions."

Sources

• Catholic News
• AP News

Pandemic practices over the past year have shown they are not automatically super-spreader events, Vatican foreign minister Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"There are numerous examples of how the freedom of worship can be guaranteed while taking all the necessary precautions to reasonably protect public safety."

Pope Francis, the Vatican and most of the world's bishops acknowledge and accept most local and national government measures to ensure public health and slow the spread of the pandemic.

"But some measures have gone so far as to "impinge on the free exercise of numerous human rights."

"Any limitations on the exercise of human rights for the protection of public health must stem from a situation of strict necessity.

"Such limitations must be proportional to the situation, applied in a nondiscriminatory fashion and used only when no other means are available."

In some regions and nations, the criteria for essential services were not met when it comes to religious gathering, Gallagher said.

While agreements to respect religious freedom while protecting public health are possible, some government officials never think to contact and work with religious leaders.

Gallagher told the UN that a "robust understanding of religious freedom is being eroded" in the global response to the pandemic."

"By ignoring the religious dimension of the human person, or worse, by dismissing it as nonessential, this fundamental right is being reduced gradually to a form of personal and private freedom of thought or opinion rather than respected as an integral part of what it means to be human," Gallagher said.

"The Holy See would like to stress that, as is recognized in numerous human rights instruments, the freedom of religion also protects its public witness and expression - both individually and collectively, publicly and - in forms of worship, observance and teaching."

Rather than doing their utmost to protect religious freedom, too many local and regional governments moved to apply "even stricter limitations to places of worship or religious education than they do for many other activities and services," he added.

Source

• Detroit Catholic
• Image: Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development