Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on October 16, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on GooglePope Leo urges global leaders to end world hunger, calling it an 'ethical derailment' and condemning its use as a weapon of war.
By Joshua McElwee
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo made an urgent plea on Thursday for global leaders to end world hunger, saying in a speech to a United Nations agency that allowing millions to go without food each day represented "an ethical derailment".
In a visit to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, the Catholic pontiff also condemned the use of hunger as a weapon of war, without naming any specific conflicts or nations.
Leo cited U.N. figures that around 673 million people do not eat enough each day, calling that number "the clear sign of a prevailing insensitivity, of a soulless economy... and of an unjust and unsustainable system of resource distribution".
"In a time when science has lengthened life expectancy … allowing millions of human beings to live - and die - struck by hunger is a collective failure, an ethical derailment, an historic offence," said the pope.
Leo, the first U.S. pope, spent much of his career before the papacy as a missionary in Peru and has made caring for the poor an early focus of his five-month tenure.
He spoke on Thursday to some 125 delegations attending a week-long forum coinciding with FAO's 80th anniversary.
The pope, speaking mainly in Spanish, said that today's conflicts "have seen the re-emergence of the use of food as a weapon of war".
"International humanitarian law, without exception, prohibits attacks on civilians and on goods essential to the survival of populations," he said.
"This seems forgotten, for, painfully, we witness the continued use of that cruel strategy," said the pope. "We cannot continue like this, since hunger is not humanity's destiny but its downfall."
(Reporting by Joshua McElweeEditing by Gareth Jones)
Ethical banking refers to financial institutions that prioritize social and environmental responsibility in their operations. They aim to support sustainable projects and avoid investments that harm society or the environment.
Resource distribution is the way in which resources, such as food, money, and services, are allocated among individuals or groups. It plays a crucial role in addressing issues like poverty and hunger.
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