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July 2009
“The scramble for land may worsen poverty and malnutrition putting the livelihoods of millions of people at risk.”
Food prices will rise again by 2015, when economies are expected to have recovered from the global recession, pushing up demand once more, says a recent UN report. 2008 is seen as the year of food crisis, prompted in part by high fuel prices, but these started declining as the global recession got underway in late 2008 and eventually returned to 2006 levels, though food prices in many developing countries are still higher than they were then.
Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, appointed Fr. Socrates C. Lesiona (see photo), of the Mission Society of the Philippines (MSP), as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the Philippines for the five-year term 2009-2014.
Though trafficking in human beings is a “tremendous offense to dignity,” there is no easy solution to this multifaceted and international problem, says a Vatican official. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, considered the gravity of human trafficking during an address at a conference organized by the Association of the Pope John XXIII Community.
Islamic-Christian dialogue can make great progress through art: this is what is taking place in the southern Philippines, on the island of Mindanao, in the Sulu Islands, thanks to a new initiative involving Christian and Muslim artists and scholars, using film, photographs, paintings, and sculptures with the motto: “Art: Instrument of Peace.” Through this exposition, organizers are leading an awareness campaign in the multi-religious society of the southern Philippines.
Warning of a possible six to eight year employment and social protection crisis due to the economic downturn, International Labor Organization (ILO) Director-General Juan Somavia called on delegates to the 98th International Labor Conference to adopt a “Global Jobs Pact.” Somavia cited a range of dire economic challenges facing the world of work, ranging from rising unemployment and increasing poverty to stress on businesses, adding, “all of this put together means that the world may be looking at a job and social protection crisis of six- to eight-year duration.”
No one is exempt from the “indisputable obligation” to protect the planet, says the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. Bartholomew I affirmed that climate change is the biggest threat for all types of life on earth in a message for World Environment Day, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program. And urged people, “independently of their religious origins, to take the ecological crisis into consideration.” He added: “Today, more than ever, there is an indisputable obligation for everyone, that of realizing that environmental considerations on our planet are not just romantic ideals of a small group.”
The Congo Basin countries, home to the world’s second largest tropical forest, are 260 years behind those of the Amazon Basin, where the trend is to hand ownership of the forest to communities, according to a new study assessing tropical forest tenure. The conclusion was drawn from a comparison between the annual rate of transferring forest to communities in 39 countries, representing 96% of global tropical forests.
“Is it a celebration of victory of peaceful, peace-loving people over those who were violent or those who were terrorists? Or is it a celebration of the victory of one group over another? Will this victory lead to a dominant and suppressive authority in the hands of one group over another group who will be made refugees or internally displaced for long years or for eternity?” For Sarath Fernando, moderator of the Movement of Lands and agriculture reform and human rights activist, Sri Lanka needs to start answering these decisive questions for its future. The fate of the refugees and the society that will be born out of almost 30 years of war: these are the issues that are beginning to concern the people of the Island nations’ south as celebrations of the government’s victory over the Tamil Tigers’ wind down.
Who could forget or harm a loving mother that has given life to each one of us, that makes the dawn for all of us to see, sustains all creatures and gives us reason to care for others,” these were the words of a wise old man of the Aeta indigenous people of the Philippines talking about Mother Earth.
China is using the “partnership” with several African countries to exploit local workers, to export unemployed people and to sell cheap Chinese goods labeled in Cantonese.
To secure their food supplies and the production of biofuels, several countries are buying or leasing huge amounts of farmland in poor nations, in Asia, Latin America and mainly in Africa. Some say that the investment could aid to develop the local economies, but the phenomenon – that has already a name: the land grab – can be also a menace to small farmers and local communities. Some denounce it as just a form of new colonialism and say that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.
A well-known writer on environmental themes and a missionary who spent more than twenty years in the Philippines, Fr. Seán McDonagh is leading a campaign to denounce the negative impact of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Because he believes they are not at all the solution to feed the poor of the world but, on the contrary, they can only contribute to create more famine and hunger.
A deep friendship started more than half a century ago between a European missionary and an African teacher. The first is now over ninety, and loves to talk about his late friend. Not because he is on the way to beatification, but because he was a good example of a Catholic, a human being and a politician. A saintly politician: Is there something more inspiring?
Murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of a large number of civilians in Darfur, have turned this Sudanese region into a hell. Portuguese Comboni Missionary, Fr. Feliz da Costa, who has been working in Sudan for 20 years – the last three in Nyala – is a privileged witness of the crimes committed in the territory and of the people’s longing for peace.
American Passionist priest, Fr. Thomas Berry, who died last month at the age of 94, was by far the most important and insightful Catholic commentator on environmental issues in the second half of the 20th century. In 1989, Newsweek described him as “the most provocative figure among the new breed of eco-theologians.”
“Whatever house you enter, stay there.”
(Read Mark 6:10-13)
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