“Since the end of the Second World War, the availability of food per person has increased by more than 40 percent,” Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, said, addressing the 25th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 10. Despite that progress, the archbishop said that hunger still afflicts more than 840 million people, but the problem “is much less evident since it persists mainly among those living in developing countries.” He said, “This type of hunger manifests itself as a ‘slow death’ caused by under-nutrition, depriving children of opportunities and the achievement of such developmental milestones as growth within normal standards, neuro-motory development and school performance, all of which are taken for granted by well-nourished people who live in high-income countries,” a situation he described, quoting Pope Francis, as a “real scandal.”‘

This article appears in April 14 2014.