americamagazine.org
2026-07-03
"The world today could live without hunger," but "conflicts are 'fed' more easily than people are nourished," Pope Leo XIV said when he visited the United Nations World Food Program, the world's largest humanitarian organization, on June 22.
Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Senator John McCain and a former executive director of W.F.P., welcomed the pope at the annual meeting of the executive board of the organization at its headquarters in Rome.
She hailed his presence as "a great honor" and said that "for hundreds of millions of people around the world who go to bed hungry each night, your voice is one of the--if not the--most powerful on earth.... You have spoken for them with courage and with love.... Your call for peace has never been more urgent. Hunger and conflict are deeply intertwined; where wars rage, families starve."
In his speech, Pope Leo noted that "today, crises have evolved from isolated events into persistent realities, marked by prolonged conflicts, chronic food insecurity, economic volatility and growing climate vulnerabilities."
He attributed this situation to the fact that "the international order has become increasingly fragmented, arising in part from the crisis of the multilateral system" and "the institutions established to safeguard the concept of a common future for all peoples and a global common good appear to have been weakened."