The Pope has lashed out at world hunger and commodity markets which drive up the price of food for those in need.  This excerpt is taken from The Compass,

“My thoughts turn toward the situation of millions of children, who are the first victims of this tragedy, condemned to an early death or to a delay in their physical or psychic development, or forced into forms of exploitation just to receive minimal nutrition,” he said.

The pope said the cause of such hunger cannot be found only in technical developments such as production cycles or commodity prices.

“Poverty, underdevelopment and, therefore, hunger are often the result of selfish behaviors that, born in the human heart, manifest themselves in social life, economic exchange, in market conditions and in the lack of access to food,” the pope said.

“How can we be silent about the fact that even food has become the object of speculation or is tied to the course of a financial market that, lacking definite rules and poor in moral principles, appears anchored to the sole objective of profit?” he said.

The pope said the United Nations’ own studies show that global food production is able to feed the world’s population — which makes the situations of hunger all the more unjust.

The international community often limits its food assistance to emergency situations, he said. Instead, he told the experts, it needs to address the problem with long-term strategies that consider the human dimension of development and not just economic benefits.

This is a problem which needs to come to an end now, but what are the “long-term strategies “which will best ensure food security for the long-term? The Pope suggested that

In responding to the crisis, international agencies should rediscover the value of the family farm, promoting the movement of young people back into rural areas, the pope said July 1 in an address to participants in an annual conference on hunger organized by the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

My colleague Chris Thompson, Dean of St. Paul Seminary, has been touting for a while now a “Green Thomism.” He notes that the family farm in the US has dropped from 4 million to 2 million in the last 50 years. He also points out that, remarkably, not one of the 244 Catholic Universities in the US has a focused professional formation in agriculture or rural life. Thompson said,

“We really need a generation of thoughtful men and women, well-informed in Catholic social thought, entering into conversations on food production, food security, human dignity, rural life — all these things that have been on the margins of the typical Catholic university experience.”

The article on the Pope ended with this note:

The pope said food security also requires protective measures against “frenetic exploitation of natural resources.” This is especially true because the race to consumption and waste seems to ignore the threat to the genetic patrimony and biological diversity, which are so important to agricultural activity, he said.

He said the Bible’s injunction to “cultivate and care for the earth” is opposed to exclusive appropriation of such natural resources.

Many of us will not be returning to the family farm, if there still is one, or retiring to rural life, but we must do something to bring to mind the need to care for and cultivate creation and to make certain that food, which is plentiful enough, is getting to all the people who need it.

My neighbor Andy is attempting to create awareness on the ground, literally, by producing as much of his own food as he is able in the city; check out his blog, AutonomyAcres. I have recently tried to bring the biblical notion of stewardship and Jesus’ teachings on food, poverty and agriculture into my New Testament class in more concrete ways. Here are my first forays into creating awareness and involvement in these issues at the classroom level:

5. The service learning option of the class can be chosen in part or in full. The two parts are

a) Work at “Feed My Starving Children” (10%); and

b) Environment and Agriculture (20%).

If you do part a) that would substitute for one of your graded papers; if you do part b) that would substitute for two of your graded papers.  If you do both parts of this option, you would have no Review Exercises handed in for grading, although you would still complete the Review Exercises for participation.

A) If you would like to do part a) you would go to Feed My Starving Children, at a time set up for the class, and then write a short reflection on how this activity puts into action Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 25:31-46 or Luke 12:13-21 (you could choose another passage of Jesus’ teaching if you wish, but clear that with me first) regarding wealth, resources and caring for others.

B) If you would like to do part b) you would have to work at the community Food Shelf Garden in West St. Paul on at least two occasions, weeding the garden, pruning, picking plants, etc., whatever was necessary for the garden at that time. You would write two reflections on your activities there: 1) how does gardening help you understand Jesus’ agricultural parables (see Mark 4 and Matthew 13) more fully? You can concentrate on one or two parables if you want; you do not have to do them all; 2) does caring for the environment and the food we grow itself constitute the fulfillment of Jesus’ command to “love one’s neighbor”? Explain how it does or does not.

I would be interested to know whether readers think these academic exercises are worthwhile for creating awareness and involvement in problems and questions related to agriculture, food and poverty, and whether you could suggest modifications, or even entirely new or different exercises. These would be helpful not only for me and my students, but potentially other professors, students and, simply, all of us who want to respond to these needs which the Pope recently addressed.

And have a Happy Fourth of July!

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @johnwmartens

 

 

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.