Pope says hunger not result of 'blind fate'

(ANSA) - Rome, June 13 - Pope Francis said Monday that hunger was not inevitable, but a problem humankind can solve if there is the collective will to do so. "We cannot 'naturalize' the fact that so many people are starving," the pontiff said during a visit to the headquarters of the United Nations World Food Programme in Rome. "We cannot simply say that their situation is the result of blind fate and that nothing can be done about it.
    "Once poverty no longer has a face, we can yield to the temptation of discussing 'hunger', 'food' and 'violence' as concepts, without reference to the real people knocking on our doors today.
    "Without faces and stories, human lives become statistics and we run the risk of bureaucratizing the sufferings of others.
    "Bureaucracies shuffle papers; compassion deals with people".
   Francis complained that food has been transformed into a privilege for a minority when it should be a right to all. "We have turned a gift with a universal destination into a privilege enjoyed by a select few. We have made the fruits of the earth - a gift to humanity - commodities for a few, thus engendering exclusion," he said.
Francis denounced that humanitarian aid had trouble reaching conflict zones due to ''complex and incomprehensible political decisions'' while weapons faced no such complications.
The pontiff denounced this ''paradox''.
''While aid and development plans (particularly in conflict zones) are hindered by complex and incomprehensible political decisions, by misleading ideological visions and by insurmountable tariff barriers, weapons are nor; regardless of their provenance, they circulate with a smug and almost absolute freedom in many parts of the world'', he said.
The pontiff then urged to cut red tape hindering humanitarian aid plans.