Hunger Symposium: Panel B Hunger and people's Conscience - Part Responses

Side 1

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Bill, may we have your response, comments, critique?
 
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Cardinal Wright, dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
 
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I shall attempt to pick upon a point made by Father Hare
 
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toward the concluding section of his presentation, where
 
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He touched briefly on the fact that the question
 
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of the Eucharist cannot be separated
 
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from the fact of hunger.
 
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I shall attempt to accomplish what
 
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I thought Arthur Simon was going to do when he quoted
 
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from chapter 5 of his book, a book which I commend to you.
 
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And I would like to attempt to link all of this together
 
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with what Father Arrupe said this morning to the effect
 
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that we seem indeed to have the know-how to solve
 
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the problem of world food production,
 
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but seem to lack the will.
 
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The question of motivation then arousing our conscience as a consequence of realizing that bread, in the words of the American bishop's food plan, bread is a sacred trust.
 
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It is not, contrary to Secretary of Agriculture Butts,
 
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it is not another tool in our kit of diplomacy.
 
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To bring these scattered points together,
 
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then, I would attempt to offer for our joint reflection
 
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The linking, to me, the inextricable linking
 
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of the Eucharist with the literal feeding
 
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of the literally hungry.
 
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We sometimes forget how completely Jewish
 
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is the context of our Eucharistic faith
 
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and liturgical practice.
 
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From the point of view of salvation history,
 
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the Eucharist takes its beginning really not
 
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on the eve of Christ's passion.
 
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The Eucharist sinks its roots into an event
 
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that took place thousands of years
 
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before the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
 
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That event, of course, is the event of the exodus.
 
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when God broke again into human history
 
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and summoned forth a rabble of slaves
 
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with the divine design of turning them
 
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into a royal nation, a kingly people, whose God he would be.
 
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As you know, faithful Jews every year celebrated the fact and the significance of the Exodus
 
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through their celebration of their Passover, when God, through the leadership of a man
 
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who stuttered, led them from slavery to freedom,
 
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from death to life.
 
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And as the faithful Jews gathered
 
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to commemorate and celebrate that passing over each year,
 
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the one who presided at the Passover feast,
 
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usually the father, would take unleavened bread
 
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because their forebears had been commanded to take with them
 
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only unleavened bread.
 
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So hasty must be their flight.
 
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And the one presiding at the Passover meal,
 
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for centuries down to our own time,
 
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takes the unleavened bread, holds it up to the view
 
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of those celebrating the Passover meal,
 
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and says, this is the bread of affliction,
 
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which our fathers ate in the desert.
 
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Let all who are hungry come and eat.
 
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Let all who are in need share our Passover meal with us.
 
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It was in this completely Jewish context
 
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that Jesus instituted the Eucharist.
 
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With desire, he said to his friends, with desire,
 
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have I desired to share this Passover meal with you.
 
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Where in the words of St. Thomas,
 
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what he was to do at that meal, dat figoris terminum,
 
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put an end to the symbols of anticipation
 
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in the experience of the Jewish people.
 
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And while they were at supper, he took the bread,
 
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blessed it, broke, and said, this
 
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is the bread of affliction, which
 
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our fathers ate in the desert.
 
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Let all who are hungry come and eat.
 
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Let all who are in need share this Passover meal with us.
 
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This is the bread of affliction.
 
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This is my body, which will be given up for you.
 
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The early church, to a more clear degree
 
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than our recent generations, seemed
 
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to have kept an understanding of this linking of the Eucharist
 
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with the literal feeding of the literal hungry.
 
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The bread for the purposes of the Eucharist
 
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and later distribution of the unused portions
 
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was barley bread, the bread of the poor.
 
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Bread made from white sifted flours
 
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like those clothed in soft garments
 
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could be found in the houses of the rich.
 
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But for the early church, the unleavened bread
 
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of sacrifice and distribution was the unmilled bread
 
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of the poor.
 
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Although our manner of celebrating
 
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the liturgy of the Eucharist has been modified from century
 
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to century, obviously the central Eucharistic faith
 
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has remained the same.
 
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We believe that this is indeed his body, his blood.
 
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But through the eyes of faith, which
 
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enable us to see the living reality of the living
 
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word of the living God, we have not always so clearly discerned
 
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what we might call that other Christ, the Christ who
 
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identified himself so unmistakably
 
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and so ineradicably with the marginalized and brutalized
 
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of this earth, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked,
 
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the unjustly imprisoned.
 
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For us, who have heard for years now the grim statistics
 
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of how many hunger, of how many thirst,
 
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of how many are imprisoned, for us, the eyes of faith,
 
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Turn these from statistics to horrifying fact.
 
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We know who is hungry and where.
 
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We know who is thirsty and where, and in what numbers,
 
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and to what degree.
 
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We cannot then, with the eyes of faith,
 
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proclaim that we see him in the Eucharist,
 
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and at the same time dim our eyes of faith
 
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and turn our ears away from the other Christ who cannot be
 
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separated from his Eucharistic presence.
 
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That, I think, gives the stir.
 
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That is what applies the spur to our conscience
 
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as we attempt to move to whatever limited degree
 
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against the massive problem of hunger.
 
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The problem is massive, as we have been told again and again
 
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and again.
 
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But we are not powerless.
 
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And to think we are, to throw up our hands and say,
 
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I know it's terrible, but what can I do,
 
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is to take refuge in what Arthur Simon, in his recent book,
 
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has called the luxury of powerlessness.
 
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We can do things.
 
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We can take the kind of course of action
 
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already indicated here.
 
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We can take the kinds of action indicated
 
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in the tabloid brochure prepared by the committee
 
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for this international symposium.
 
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If you have not as yet received a copy, please try to get one.
 
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They seem readily available.
 
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There are things that we can do as Christian citizens
 
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of conscience, which makes in our time and in our place
 
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that much harsher and demanding the question
 
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We know that he asks in each reception of the Eucharist,
 
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I was hungry.
 
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As Father Hare said, most times people go home and wonder
 
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what's going to happen, and very often nothing happens.
 
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However, in this case, I think it's quite obvious
 
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that a great deal is taking place.
 
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Our Lord said, I feel sorry for these people.
 
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They have nothing to eat.
 
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I do not want to send them away hungry
 
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lest they collapse on the way.
 
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Christians, individuals, families, nations,
 
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and associations of nations must therefore
 
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face up to the fact that it is unthinkably immoral to permit
 
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people to go hungry.
 
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In recent years, there have been many statements concerning this,
 
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and it's not necessary here, I think,
 
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to do more than simply agree with it.
 
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In one territory, to set a particular stage
 
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where Catholic Relief Services is working,
 
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and unfortunately, it's common, it's
 
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not an isolated incident, there's
 
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a population of 45 million people,
 
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including 3 million unemployed and probably about 15 million
 
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underemployed.
 
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With 10,000 tons of food, we're giving work
 
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to 20,000 heads of families and feeding a total of 100,000
 
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people through them.
 
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An American Jesuit in that diocese
 
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described this CRS Food for Work project
 
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as one of the best things that ever happened to his diocese.
 
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But a truly gigantic effort still
 
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has to be cranked up because that's just
 
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scratching the surface.
 
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The World Food Congress, the World Food Conference,
 
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rather, in 1974 in Rome, approved a program
 
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calling for four things.
 
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Increased and rationalized food aid.
 
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A 10 million ton food bank.
 
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increased agricultural production,
 
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and food deficit countries.
 
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And of them all, the last is undoubtedly
 
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the most important, although all three are needed.
 
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36 member nations now, or 36 men,
 
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representing their 36 countries, now
 
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constitute a World Food Council, which
 
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monitors the implementation of the resolutions mentioned
 
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above or the recommendations of the World Food Conference.
 
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And it continually reassesses the world food situation,
 
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encourages action, and makes recommendations
 
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to other United Nations bodies, identifies
 
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problems as they arise, gaps in activities,
 
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time lags in performance, and measures progress
 
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towards an integrated and coordinated approach
 
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to the World Food Program problem.
 
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This council was set up by the General Assembly of the United
 
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Nations.
 
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Secondly, an international fund that Father Hare mentioned
 
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for agricultural development has been established
 
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with something less than the $1.21 billion
 
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requested by the World Food Conference.
 
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A consultative group on world food production and investment
 
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has also been established, as well as
 
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a global early warning information
 
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system on what is happening in various corners of the world.
 
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That's the UN program.
 
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The US Congress has legislated a minimum food aid grant
 
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program of 1,300,000 tons of food yearly.
 
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On the other hand, the administration's preoccupations
 
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with commercial sales is reflected
 
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in the approval of a million ton sale program
 
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recently to Russia that was published
 
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in the beginning of July.
 
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And Russia is hardly an underdeveloped country.
 
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This would seem to indicate that our response to need
 
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is at least self-serving.
 
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Despite worldwide shortages, there
 
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are some people who say that if people, and these people are
 
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always in third world countries, of course, cannot buy food,
 
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There's no point in producing more of it.
 
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According to this opinion, we must first create more jobs,
 
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produce more wealth, distribute this wealth
 
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through increased employment, thus providing
 
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the money necessary for people to purchase more food, which
 
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we would only then produce.
 
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We can only ask what would happen to the poor
 
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while this process was taking place.
 
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And while it's taking place in one part of the world,
 
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what would happen to the poor in all the rest of the world?
 
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This would seem, this opinion would
 
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seem to indicate an obsession with capitalism, profits
 
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and growth, rather than with people, their needs,
 
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and Christian principles.
 
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And it obstructs our treating of our impoverished brothers
 
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of the world as the brothers that they truly are.
 
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Our government also provided in the current aid bill
 
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for expenditures of $1,567 million
 
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for agriculture, rural development, and nutrition
 
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programs in the third world.
 
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On November 9, 1974, during the World Food Conference,
 
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our Holy Father, Pope Paul VI, addressing the conference,
 
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noted that mankind is presently making
 
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the resources of the universe yield their full potential.
 
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But in our own world, the wealth of some
 
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and the grinding poverty of others
 
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seems to paralyze our best efforts.
 
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Human intelligence can protect the health of so many,
 
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so completely, but it's avoiding the task
 
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of ensuring adequate nourishment for the most defenseless
 
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sectors of mankind.
 
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The Holy Father said the right to satisfy man's hunger
 
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must finally be recognized for everyone.
 
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This right is based on the fact that all the goods of the Earth
 
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are destined primarily for universal use
 
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and for the subsistence of all men
 
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before any individual appropriation.
 
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Christ based this judgment of each human being
 
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on the respect for this right.
 
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On this marvelous occasion, that of a Eucharistic Congress,
 
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the hungers of man for God, for food, for freedom,
 
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for justice, for the Spirit, for truth, for understanding,
 
253
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:09,420
for peace, and for Jesus are being presented to us
 
254
00:20:09,420 --> 00:20:13,160
in such a way as to make us all aware of the interconnection,
 
255
00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:17,780
dependency of each of these hungers on the other.
 
256
00:20:17,780 --> 00:20:24,620
The hearts of men long for God in his order and wisdom.
 
257
00:20:24,620 --> 00:20:27,180
Can we, with that common longing,
 
258
00:20:27,180 --> 00:20:30,700
allow one another to starve for food,
 
259
00:20:30,700 --> 00:20:34,420
suffer from malnutrition, endure physical weakness
 
260
00:20:34,420 --> 00:20:39,320
because we consume too little food?
 
261
00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:43,360
Do we belong to one body of Christ
 
262
00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:45,500
and deny to any of our fellow men
 
263
00:20:45,500 --> 00:20:48,760
the right to freedom, to mutual understanding,
 
264
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:53,080
and reconciliation that human hearts long for,
 
265
00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:57,160
strive after, and proclaim as mans do?
 
266
00:20:57,160 --> 00:21:00,160
Shall we who are united in supporting every man's right
 
267
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,120
to the satisfying of these hungers
 
268
00:21:02,120 --> 00:21:06,920
legitimately deny to our fellow men united in this aspiration
 
269
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,120
the right to share in the fruits of the earth
 
270
00:21:09,120 --> 00:21:12,080
that are necessary to maintain the life which
 
271
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:13,360
God has put in their bodies.
 
272
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:19,080
We know the theological and spiritual reasons
 
273
00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:22,320
why God has perpetuated his presence among us
 
274
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:25,680
under the species of bread and wine.
 
275
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:30,360
But the universality of access to this spiritual food
 
276
00:21:30,360 --> 00:21:33,660
and to the other needed forms of physical sustenance
 
277
00:21:33,660 --> 00:21:37,520
has its parallel in the universality of access
 
278
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:40,520
of man to God.
 
279
00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:42,960
From this point of view also, there
 
280
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:46,080
must be no denial of the means to satisfy the hunger
 
281
00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:48,600
of any man anywhere on Earth.
 
282
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:52,320
The bread of life is a spiritual food indeed,
 
283
00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:55,720
but there is also the material bread of life
 
284
00:21:55,720 --> 00:22:01,040
that has a quasi-sacramental role of satisfying
 
285
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:04,920
man's physical hunger.
 
286
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:10,600
As life is sacred, so the bread that sustains life
 
287
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:13,620
has a sacred purpose.
 
288
00:22:13,620 --> 00:22:16,720
In this sense, it may not be denied to anyone
 
289
00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:18,760
on Earth at any age of the world,
 
290
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:21,400
neither in the amount needed nor in the quality that
 
291
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,520
will support life.
 
292
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:28,760
The role of the producer of food, its distributor
 
293
00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:31,240
and handler in any way consequently
 
294
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:36,920
becomes a sacred trust, an act of sharing in the work of God,
 
295
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:40,560
a way of sustaining life which God has created,
 
296
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:44,120
a purposeful and meaningful activity that
 
297
00:22:44,120 --> 00:22:46,840
approaches a sacred role.
 
298
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:49,080
In the face of such considerations,
 
299
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:52,280
can we be only humanitarian in our efforts
 
300
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:55,240
to assuage the hunger for food?
 
301
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,960
Must we not be godlike in trying to provide
 
302
00:22:59,960 --> 00:23:02,520
for the needs of all men everywhere
 
303
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:07,120
with the great goods of his creation.
 
304
00:23:07,120 --> 00:23:11,680
Systems are undoubtedly required to govern our lives
 
305
00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,880
as men in this complicated era.
 
306
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,400
But when a system, as sometimes happens,
 
307
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:22,000
produces at the same time enormous benefits
 
308
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,480
and disastrous limitations on our efforts
 
309
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:29,880
to assuage human hunger, that system should be modified.
 
310
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:32,400
Increased agricultural production
 
311
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,400
has permitted many countries in the world
 
312
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,160
to help their neighbors with food in ways
 
313
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:42,360
that earlier eras of the world hardly dreamed of.
 
314
00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:44,640
But when this great process is affected
 
315
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:49,600
by other considerations, profits from commercial sales,
 
316
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,720
costs of conservation, transportation and distribution
 
317
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:59,000
to famished areas of the world, the self-protective instinct
 
318
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:03,580
to limit production in order to maintain prices and profits,
 
319
00:24:03,580 --> 00:24:07,060
and even the exaltation of the principle of self-interest
 
320
00:24:07,060 --> 00:24:10,620
first, then the system must be modified
 
321
00:24:10,620 --> 00:24:13,300
since the true Christian principle is
 
322
00:24:13,300 --> 00:24:17,220
that of our neighbor's interest first.
 
323
00:24:17,220 --> 00:24:19,820
The world has changed considerably
 
324
00:24:19,820 --> 00:24:25,100
since the man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho
 
325
00:24:25,100 --> 00:24:28,020
fell among thieves.
 
326
00:24:28,020 --> 00:24:30,780
But the act of the good Samaritan on that occasion
 
327
00:24:30,780 --> 00:24:33,980
has not ceased to be a basic principle of conduct
 
328
00:24:33,980 --> 00:24:37,420
for all right-thinking men.
 
329
00:24:37,420 --> 00:24:42,140
We do unto others as you would have others do unto you
 
330
00:24:42,140 --> 00:24:46,220
as the universally accepted golden rule.
 
331
00:24:46,220 --> 00:24:49,380
In the face of these principles, how is it possible for us
 
332
00:24:49,380 --> 00:24:51,980
to even mention without a shudder of horror
 
333
00:24:51,980 --> 00:24:56,500
such things as triage, the lifeboat ethic,
 
334
00:24:56,500 --> 00:25:01,060
or other such neighbor-sacrificing systems?
 
335
00:25:01,060 --> 00:25:03,940
Is our own welfare so precious that it
 
336
00:25:03,940 --> 00:25:08,180
has to be purchased at the cost of our spiritual values
 
337
00:25:08,180 --> 00:25:10,740
and at the price of the lives of the weakest
 
338
00:25:10,740 --> 00:25:14,100
members of the human community?
 
339
00:25:14,100 --> 00:25:16,620
Rather, should not the physical good of all of us
 
340
00:25:16,620 --> 00:25:21,260
be preserved by using wisdom, scientific knowledge,
 
341
00:25:21,260 --> 00:25:24,660
tremendous technical resources, and a spirit
 
342
00:25:24,660 --> 00:25:28,400
of conscious daring and striving.
 
343
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,880
This is how the benefits of the fruits of the earth
 
344
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:33,780
can be brought to all of our fellow men
 
345
00:25:33,780 --> 00:25:38,040
and first and foremost to the weakest among them.
 
346
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,080
What we've said thus far can be summed up in the conclusion
 
347
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:44,120
that the Christian morality excludes
 
348
00:25:44,120 --> 00:25:47,400
our consideration of any solutions to the world food
 
349
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,940
problem that conflict with the sermon on the mount that
 
350
00:25:50,940 --> 00:25:53,720
sacrifices any members of the human family
 
351
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,220
for the good of others, or that fails
 
352
00:25:56,220 --> 00:26:00,300
to regard the sufferings of one as a violation
 
353
00:26:00,300 --> 00:26:02,600
of the good of all.
 
354
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:06,220
But this being the case, we must ask ourselves
 
355
00:26:06,220 --> 00:26:10,740
whether or not it's possible for us to feed the world,
 
356
00:26:10,740 --> 00:26:14,540
prevent hunger and malnutrition, produce adequately
 
357
00:26:14,540 --> 00:26:16,300
for the present and for the future.
 
358
00:26:19,020 --> 00:26:22,180
And that's the challenge, really.
 
359
00:26:22,180 --> 00:26:26,400
The World Bank, whose studies, experience, and planning
 
360
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:28,760
is at least as good as any existing today,
 
361
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:31,760
says that we can.
 
362
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:35,880
First of all, the urgency of expanding food supplies
 
363
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:38,840
and the objectives of rural development
 
364
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:44,500
are practically the same thing and depend one upon the other.
 
365
00:26:44,500 --> 00:26:46,780
The World Bank examined the possibility
 
366
00:26:46,780 --> 00:26:53,680
of increasing the annual rate of growth of output
 
367
00:26:53,680 --> 00:27:04,540
by small farmers by 5% by 1985.
 
368
00:27:04,540 --> 00:27:07,060
Taking into account all of the factors that
 
369
00:27:07,060 --> 00:27:08,820
could influence such an objective,
 
370
00:27:08,820 --> 00:27:12,480
both favorably and unfavorably, the experience
 
371
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,780
of underdeveloped countries and of the World Bank
 
372
00:27:14,780 --> 00:27:19,760
itself in this regard, the technological, organizational,
 
373
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,500
procedural, and manpower difficulties
 
374
00:27:22,500 --> 00:27:26,980
limiting effective use of additional investment,
 
375
00:27:26,980 --> 00:27:30,580
and using two different methods for the study,
 
376
00:27:30,580 --> 00:27:34,300
the bank concluded that on the basis of the first method
 
377
00:27:34,300 --> 00:27:41,540
that a total cumulative capital cost of $70,000 million
 
378
00:27:41,540 --> 00:27:47,460
must be invested to achieve the annual growth rate mentioned
 
379
00:27:47,460 --> 00:27:52,900
in the production of small farmers in the third world.
 
380
00:27:52,900 --> 00:27:54,780
This is the end of side one.
 
381
00:27:54,780 --> 00:27:58,500
To hear side two, turn the cassette over now.

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000
To maintain that growth beyond 1985,
2
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:11,000
an additional annual investment or expenditure
3
00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:17,000
of approximately $20,000 million would still be needed yearly.
4
00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:26,000
Using a second method to examine the same objective,
5
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:32,000
the overall cost of the best of several implementation schedules
6
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:37,000
to assist the rural poor and small farmers in the same way that we mentioned,
7
00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:45,000
and they will number over 700 million people by the end of the 1970s,
8
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:50,000
could cost as much as $100,000 million.
9
00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,000
The bank goes on to say, on some counts,
10
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:57,000
even the higher estimate of $100,000 million investment
11
00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000
would seem remarkably modest to provide the impetus
12
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:07,000
for sustaining increases in food productivity and real income for the rural poor.
13
00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:13,000
Estimates of income, savings, and investment at present,
14
00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:15,000
the present investment,
15
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:20,000
in developing countries including the petroleum and mineral exporters
16
00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:23,000
that are part of the third world,
17
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:28,000
indicate that total investments in developing countries in 1974
18
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:33,000
were approximately $170,000 million,
19
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:41,000
allowing for phasing over a 10-year period $10,000 million per year
20
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:45,000
would have to be directed out of the total sum available
21
00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,000
and already being used for that purpose for rural development
22
00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:56,000
and this would account for only 6% of the total being invested at the present time.
23
00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:00,000
For the low-income developing countries,
24
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:05,000
which means excluding the oil and mineral producers,
25
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:07,000
the picture is different,
26
00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:17,000
but it still is within the realm of reasonable possibilities according to the bank.
27
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:21,000
The bank considers the investments required
28
00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:28,000
neither too high nor unreasonable nor otherwise unacceptable.
29
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:30,000
Quite the contrary.
30
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:34,000
Furthermore, since food shortages affect all countries,
31
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:38,000
including the petroleum and mineral exporters,
32
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:41,000
along with the other developing countries,
33
00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:48,000
the consideration based on all the countries in the third world taken together
34
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,000
is clearly the most valid one.
35
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,000
It is also clear that such an investment
36
00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,000
that will provide an annual 5% growth rate in the production of small farmers
37
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:05,000
answers the question, can we prevent hunger?
38
00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:10,000
As the bank states, rural areas have labor, land,
39
00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:13,000
and at least some capital, which if mobilized,
40
00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:16,000
will reduce poverty and improve the quality of life.
41
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:20,000
The redirection to rural development of a small percentage
42
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:23,000
of present investments in underdeveloped countries
43
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:27,000
will improve productivity, increase employment,
44
00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:30,000
and hence provide higher income
45
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:36,000
as well as minimum acceptable levels of food, shelter, education, and health,
46
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:40,000
expansion of communications, and the improvement of housing.
47
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:45,000
Since we're talking about what might well be a last chance effort
48
00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:51,000
to rescue from absolute poverty just less than 700 million poor
49
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,000
in the developing world,
50
00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:00,000
and a poor person by this definition has less than $50 a year to live on,
51
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,000
this is indeed a cheap price to pay
52
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,000
and one which humanity can well afford.
53
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:11,000
In addition, it has the advantage of providing for the production of food
54
00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,000
to meet the shortages where they exist
55
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,000
rather than in the traditional food exporting countries of North America
56
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,000
and to a lesser extent of Europe.
57
00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:25,000
And if one's interest extends also to another level,
58
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,000
it meets the demands of economic capitalism
59
00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:31,000
for growth and profit at the local level.
60
00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:34,000
What we are talking about, therefore, can be done
61
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:39,000
not only in the estimation of agencies such as our own
62
00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:44,000
that have seen many areas of the third world raised to self-sufficiency,
63
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:47,000
but also in the carefully researched opinion
64
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:51,000
of such a prestigious institution as the World Bank
65
00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000
that has brought to bear on this problem
66
00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:58,000
all the available wisdom, science, and technology it could marshal.
67
00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:03,000
If some of us, therefore, turn to immoral solutions
68
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,000
simply out of desperation,
69
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:10,000
it must be stated that there is little justification
70
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,000
for the tactics of despair.
71
00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:19,000
Bishop Rouse recently told the House Subcommittee on International Resources,
72
00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:21,000
Food and Energy,
73
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,000
the hungry have a right to live,
74
00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:27,000
and we, therefore, have no other morally acceptable choice
75
00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:31,000
than to open wide our hands to our brothers.
76
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Thank you.
77
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Thank you very much, Monsignor.
78
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I will ask Sister now if she will make her responses, comments, and critique.
79
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:11,000
Cardinal Wright and friends, sisters and brothers,
80
00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:15,000
I have three points to make, and I think I can make them very briefly
81
00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:19,000
so that we have a chance to share among ourselves,
82
00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:23,000
because by this time I'm sure we have many ideas.
83
00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:28,000
Father Hare described the state of the question in the first part of his talk.
84
00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:35,000
In the second, he analyzed the issue and gave us four models,
85
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:39,000
and then dealt more briefly with Christian resources
86
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:43,000
in the face of world hunger, doctrinal, moral, and organizational.
87
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:47,000
And it's to that third part that I would like to address my remarks,
88
00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:50,000
one in each of those categories.
89
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:56,000
Other speakers have refreshed our memories
90
00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:58,000
and extended our understanding of what we believe
91
00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,000
about the link between Eucharist and hunger.
92
00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:07,000
I would like to suggest that the hunger issue is bringing into focus
93
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,000
that one of the things that we believe is that as human beings,
94
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:14,000
and certainly as Christians, we all have a responsibility to be educators
95
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,000
in the sense that we have to nourish one another
96
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,000
in an understanding, a continuing understanding of this crucial issue
97
00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:24,000
which will be ours and a central human issue,
98
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,000
not an isolated one, for the rest of our lives.
99
00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:32,000
And so I think that we have to take very seriously
100
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,000
and dedicate ourselves to the truth that each of us,
101
00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:39,000
as we go from the Eucharist to Congress,
102
00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:43,000
must take some responsibility for extending an understanding
103
00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:49,000
of the hunger issue and getting it located structurally
104
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:53,000
into our educational system, whether that's elementary, high school, college,
105
00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:57,000
or adult education in the parish, or some other non-formal way of education.
106
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In doing that, I then lead into the next point I want to make
107
00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:06,000
about moral resources.
108
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,000
I think it's terribly important for us to spare no effort
109
00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,000
to analyze the hunger issue as a problem to be solved,
110
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:17,000
but to continually address it also as a mystery to be lived.
111
00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,000
And I don't mean just the sacramental Eucharist,
112
00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:22,000
but I mean the hunger mystery.
113
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:25,000
That somehow our understanding of the Eucharist
114
00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:29,000
will depend on our rediscovering the natural sacramentality of food.
115
00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:34,000
That in this issue we are really dealing with a life and death issue.
116
00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:39,000
We share life with one another when we share food.
117
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,000
And it's only, I think, by integrating the hunger issue
118
00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,000
as a problem to be solved, demanding the best in analysis,
119
00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:51,000
and a mystery to be lived, that we are going to go a step beyond
120
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:54,000
the step that we seem to be, or the place we seem to be now,
121
00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:56,000
and we recognize it as a justice issue,
122
00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:00,000
which is a great step forward from seeing it only as a personal,
123
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,000
almsgiving kind of an issue,
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to a deeper integration of the relationship between love and justice.
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In the beautiful words of the Synod 71 document,
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love demands justice, and justice finds its inner fullness only in love.
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It seems to me that it's terribly important to realize here
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that our mistake in the past for historical, theological,
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or sociological reasons, I don't know why,
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was that in our old idea of charity or almsgiving,
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we seemed to think that we could make a unilateral private decision.
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We were the decision makers about how much we would take out of our pockets
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for Catholic relief services and then think it was all over.
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But in deciding about justice, the norm for the decision is out there.
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It's in the real need of a real brother and a real sister we recognize
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because we recognize a God whom we call Father.
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So I think in dealing with the hunger issue educationally
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as a problem to be solved and a mystery to be lived,
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we need to continue to look for improved models.
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And while spaceships are a great example of that,
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and while spaceship has some distinct advantages over the family table,
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it's a very kind of a western technological task-oriented model.
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We also have to continually search for myths and symbols
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and to cultivate their creative arts as much as possible
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to find insights on how to stay with this issue,
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which is so dear to us because we know that God whom we know in Jesus
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took real bread and real wine and really identified with it.
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And that's why I think it's a beautiful thing and something that we'll remember
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as a high point of our Eucharistic Congress,
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that there's so much of a celebration of the arts surrounding this Congress,
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and maybe it's only going to be in post-Eucharistic Congress reflection
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we'll see what a very, very significant dimension of a Congress that is.
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The third point and final one I'd like to make is about organizational resources.
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Our United States Bishop Conference produced in November 1974
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a pastoral plan on the world food crisis,
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which in my view is one of the most magnificent pastoral theological documents
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that's come out of the American church.
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Now our tendency is to say, well, that was the 1974 plan,
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in 1975 we did something on something else.
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I think that we need to take that pastoral plan,
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copies are available from the USCC and also from Catholic Relief Services,
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and to continue to see that as a plan that needs continual implementation
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because it deals with those three levels that we have to continually work on
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that Bishop Rausch spoke so beautifully about this morning.
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We have there seven targeted issues in which we must continually work on
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and enter into the public policy debate.
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It deals with the need for continuing education, particularly adult education.
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If we do it right ourselves, those of us in this room,
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and our fellow Christians around the country,
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our children will catch it from us, but it won't work the other way around.
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And it deals with the whole lifestyle and pastoral liturgical dimension.
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And it's very important, it seems to me,
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that we don't let that pastoral plan on the world food crisis
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become an historical document, but that it really become a blueprint for action.
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And then finally, if we're going to act on that,
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it reminds us that we have to act with all our brothers and sisters in this country,
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particularly those of us who do share a living faith in Jesus Christ.
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And we can be very grateful to God that we have together invented an organization
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to put arms and legs on that public policy part of the pastoral plan of action.
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And here, of course, I speak of bread for the world.
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I'm not at all embarrassed to be advocating it very strongly.
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Those are the three points that I would like to make in just perhaps extending a little further,
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I hope anyway, what Father Hare was saying,
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and he spent most of his time in that excellent analysis.
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And as we walk from this room, we have to say,
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now that we've analyzed the issue, what do we do to work with it?
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you, Sister.
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In the name of the organization,
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I apologize for the trouble you have with the technique and the technicians,
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but there's a moral.
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It's a very important one.
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Use the technicians when they work, but don't count on them.
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Always have human resources and resources of goodwill to put the thing through
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because you never know when the damn machine is going to squeal or break down.
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Are there any of the resource men who would like to make an observation or an intervention?
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I have the uncomfortable feeling that they have been rejected.
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Thank you.
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I promise to be very brief.
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I'm reacting mainly to Father Hare's extraordinarily lucid and acute presentation,
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and he's given us so much it may seem greedy to ask for even more.
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But if I were to ask for something more from him,
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I should like to know, pursuing his interest in exploring the population dimension of this problem,
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whether or not we need additional models to guide people in countries like the United States
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where you postulate different possible responses from that part of the world
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where population right now is said to be growing at the rate of about 2.5% a year.
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For instance, suppose it continues to grow at 2.5.
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What response does that call for?
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Should it grow at a more rapid rate?
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Would that in any way alter our obligations or posture?
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I'm not expecting impromptu answers to this.
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I suggest I think these are things also that at some time and some place have to be explored,
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however uncomfortable may be the implications to us.
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Father Hare, do you wish to comment?
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I would simply agree that that is part of the problem.
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In other places I've tried to respond within the framework of what the framework of Catholic teaching is
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and where I thought questions ought to be asked of the teaching.
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And I feel myself that that middle position that argues that there is a population problem,
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that governments have a right to deal with it, as Pope Paul said in Progressio Populorum,
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but that the population question has to be seen within the framework of the larger development question.
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I think it's someplace in there that the answer is.
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Now, the specifics of what the limits of government intervention are, what's legitimate and not,
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the specifics raised by the India situation, for example, are on the table.
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And I think, quite frankly, the Catholic Church can't talk about the food problem without talking about the other issue.
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I'm not trying to dictate what the position ought to be,
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but you just can't stay in the public forum if you say there's no problem on the other.
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So I'm just arguing for a fabric that deals with both sides of the problem.
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The U.S. side of the problem tends to take the population variable and push it as the primary question very often in our aid programs,
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in some of our voluntary organizations.
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I think there needs to be resistance to that in this country, but I don't argue that we ought to argue there's no problem by any means.
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I merely would like to ask again, Father Herr, where in his picture, I think he has not neglected to consider what I'm going to question,
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but I recognize the humanity in sharing bread, but there seems to me also to be a balance.
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I feel that, maybe it's my legal background, that with every right there's a correlative duty.
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Is there not some balance whereby we ought to request some self-help?
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In the old oriental proverb you all know, you're all familiar with,
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if you give a man a fish you feed him for a meal.
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If you teach him how to fish you feed him for life.
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Also, many philosophers have said that the highest form of charity is to help a man help himself.
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Where, Father, does this fit into the picture?
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I'll make two comments on the observation, which I accept is a valid observation.
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The first comment I'd make is that the question of self-help is one of the issues on the agenda.
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Internal reform in the developing countries is part of the problem on agricultural development.
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It is part of the problem in the larger economic picture.
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Second problem is much more tricky.
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I would argue that what's on the table in very general terms in the international debate today,
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under the label of the new international economic order,
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are some of the preconditions that the developing countries feel are necessary for self-help.
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They are not talking about aid, if you'll look carefully.
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They're talking about changing the trading structures.
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They're talking about the questions of foreign investment,
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what kind of control they have over the corporations that move in and out of their countries.
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And that's a self-help problem.
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And that problem gets very quickly to the problem of the nature of political power in the international system.
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What power they have in the international decision-making institutions.
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I think we have to be careful in the U.S. that we don't try and have it both ways.
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We have a strong tradition of self-help among ourselves, and that's good.
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And it's good for other people, too.
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But when the self-help issues come on the table, in terms of this debate of the NIEO,
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I wouldn't say that the U.S. response has been magnanimous, open-ended, and quick.
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I'd say that we have been regarded as the primary hedging institution in the international community.
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So I think if we're going to talk about self-help, we need to talk about, in specific terms,
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about what self-help is going to mean.
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Self-help means, as it did for the unions in this country when they went up against management,
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it means changing the structure of power.
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It means regulating parts of the economic system that we generally don't like regulated.
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I think that at least that's going to be part of the self-help project.
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And we're not quite so ready, I don't think, to say yes to the self-help
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after we've asked people to take those steps.
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Thank you.
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APPLAUSE
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Fortunately, I am forbidden by the ground rules from making a speech.
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But I'm tempted to make one.
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I'd like to provide a speech which might not send a consultant out optimistic,
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but which would sketch in a little bit more than the legal opinion,
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as reflected, for example, by some recent decisions of the highest supreme body in our land,
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which was entirely on the side of population control
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and not a bit on the side of doing anything about anything else.
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APPLAUSE
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When I was the Bishop of Pittsburgh, I am allowed to tell a story.
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LAUGHTER
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I used to go down for a month every year
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and work with the priests and sisters and laity from Pittsburgh
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in a port city in Peru, which desperately needed optimism.
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One day there arrived the representatives of the United States Aid to Latin America.
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I can remember them now. They had acne all over their faces.
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And they offered the town of Chimbote some lousy powdered milk.
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But the condition of their getting the lousy powdered milk
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was that they had to take a bag of contraceptives.
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I had already learned from university people in Lima
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the manner in which if Westinghouse would only give us the means
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to desalinise the Pacific,
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we could produce on that lunar landscape between Lima and Chimbote
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enough food to sustain 20 times the population for 500 years.
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I had also learned that the Humboldt stream
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is so filled with protein that you can walk on it.
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So the great question arose, do we take the lousy powdered milk?
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Well, they desperately needed it.
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They were selling American canned fruit in the Lima stores.
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When in their own jungle at the headwaters of the Amazon,
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the fruit was dying on the vine
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because the American aid program did not include the means yet to it.
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And to handle it, sheer lack of vision or compassion or intelligence
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or willingness to pass up our canned fruit profits in the stores of Lima.
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So there was a discussion, will we take the lousy powdered milk?
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And they turned to me as a bishop and a Catholic
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and I was 100% on the side of the Pope.
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And they said, what do we do?
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I said, take both bags and I'll see you later.
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They took the lousy powdered milk and they took the bag of contraceptives
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and then there was a discussion of what we would do with the bag of contraceptives
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and I suggested to throw it in the harbour.
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It was a gift.
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You can do with a gift as you choose.
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But one of the descendants of the Incas with more brains than I had said,
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what in the name of God will it do to the fish?
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That would complicate the problem.
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So we burned it.
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And I hope they burn it till there's nothing less to burn
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because there cannot possibly be too many good people in a land that was created
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to hold 50 million and only has 8 million.
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That's the cold fact.
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Moreover, I add one further exceedingly brief note.
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At the end of the 15th century,
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there was a mood throughout Europe that the world was so overpopulated.
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People were so pushed in on one another that there could be nothing but war.
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And then a little Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus set out
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from Lisbon and opened up a whole new world.
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The last talk that Pius XII gave I heard.
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He was a dying man.
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And he looked at the crowd of people there,
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all of them anxious, worried, depressed, pessimistic,
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and he said, what is the matter with you?
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You are standing on the shores of space.
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You have a whole universe to exploit.
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And only the other day I saw a science fiction writer say,
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and they're only 50 years ahead of the rest of us,
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we have a universe to colonize.
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Cut the kidding.
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Cut the kidding.
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Old Joe Kennedy said there couldn't be too many Kennedys.
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Well, I don't think there can be too many people.
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And I think the government should be forced to find the means to support the people there.
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But in any case, the day they make a ruling
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or a bit of legislation that forbids the freedom of people to follow their own conscience
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and their own preferences in this matter, that day they should be thrown out.