Tonight, 800 million people around the world will go to bed hungry.
Developing countries are plagued by starvation, in a problem that Pope Francis recently described as “scandalous”.
It’s a problem that the director of Pontifical Mission Societies in India, Fr Faustine Lobo, has devoted his life to solving.
The 50-year-old priest from Mangalore, India spent five days in Perth in June, and he told The Record Christians needed to respond to the challenge of loving their neighbour.
“Loving your neighbour is loving the person who is in difficulty,” he says. “We have millions of people who are suffering, who are in need, who are in difficulty. We have to realise that we have a responsibility towards [them]. They have lost hope for their lives. These millions of people are looking for support.”
Fr Faustine says the number of people in the world dying of starvation is “staggering”.
“The situation is horrible,” he says. “It is said that for every 3.6 seconds, a person dies of starvation.
“Out of the 800 million who go to bed hungry, approximately one-third are children. This is a terrible situation.”
Ironically, Fr Faustine points out that while an estimated 15 per cent of the population of developing countries is malnourished, an equal percentage of the world’s population is obese.
“There are people who have more than they need,” he says. “They eat too much, and they waste too much.”
He quotes Mahatma Ghandi, who once remarked: “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
“The world today is suffering because there are people who are greedy,” Fr Faustine says. “God has provided sufficiently for all, we only have to share. If we are ready to share, there is enough and more.”
Problems of greed and wastage abound in most developed countries, including Australia. Advocacy group Do Something! released statistics in December claiming Australians waste $8 billion worth of edible foods each year.
Fr Faustine says people urgently need to eradicate the mindset that wasting natural resources is perfectly acceptable. “There is a need to somehow reduce the wastage. If we are ready to reduce the wastage, I think so much of the problem could be reduced,” he says.
But Fr Faustine says those who waste needlessly are often unaware of the lack of food and water in other parts of the world.
He says that as the world has become a “global village”, an individual’s choice to waste natural resources can affect those struggling to survive in another part of the world.
“When you are using the natural resources, because of you, the price of that food will go higher,” he asserts.
“For the poor person, already not in a position to buy, now you are making the world increase the price, and it makes it all the more difficult to have whatever he needs.”
Despite the problems of malnutrition present in India, the Catholic Church is growing steadily in a predominantly Hindu country.
With more than 17 million Catholics, 223 bishops, and five cardinals, Catholicism is alive and well in India, according to Fr Faustine.
“There is a very good future for the Church in India,” he says. “People are thirsting for the Word of God.
“We are well respected. The majority of the population of India believes that Christians are peace-loving people.”
One of the strengths of the Church in India is the continuous formation of Catholics throughout their lives.
“Children from the age of five to the age of 18 are compulsorily catechised, and between the ages of 18 and 21 there are Bible study sessions so the youth are also catechised,” Fr Faustine explains.
Additionally, each Catholic in India is automatically registered with his or her local parish upon arrival in a suburb. “Every Catholic in that particular locality is attached to the parish and there is a kind of belonging among the people; people really feel that this is my church, this is my parish,” Fr Faustine says.
As part of his work in India, Fr Faustine has also helped to establish the ‘Women Empowerment Program’ aimed at eradicating the patriarchal system that exists in the country.
“In India, the status of women is always considered as lower than men,” he explains. “Both women and men must…come to understand that they have equal rights, equal dignity, equal status.
“There is a complementarity, one needs the other. When both of them are able to realise that they need each other, then they will start respecting each other.”
While the task is enormous, Fr Faustine is optimistic for the future and says changes are slowly taking place.
Being a Catholic priest in a Hindu country also has its challenges. The number of Catholics in India represents just 2.4 per cent of the population, but Fr Faustine says there is virtually no animosity between Hindus and Catholics.
“Hindus, by their beliefs, are tolerant,” he says. “They believe in several gods, so the God of Christianity is just one more god for them.”
However, Fr Faustine says a minority fringe group of Hindus has unfairly altered the perception of interfaith relations.
“They are creating problems for Christians as well as Muslims, so it has given a perception that all Hindus are bad, but actually in reality that is not the case,” he says. “Only 2 per cent among the Hindus are creating this problem and the majority are very good.”
Indian Hindus have even taken to Pope Francis, says Fr Faustine, who himself met the Holy Father recently.
“He is a pope for the times,” he says. “He is simple, he is Christ-like, he is down to earth, approachable, very straightforward, and he’s ready to work for the people who are poor.”
The Pontiff’s care for the poor is inspiring for Fr Faustine, who says his first and foremost concern is to see that everyone has food and water.
But allocating funds for the missions has its challenges. One of those is ensuring that donations reach their desired destination.
As the person responsible for coordinating the missionary funding in 166 dioceses in India, representing more than 10,000 parishes, Fr Faustine recognises these challenges.
He says it is important for those who donate to the missions to do some research into where their money is going.
“When you are donating funds, you have to check the credibility of that particular organisation,” he says. “We should have a monitoring mechanism by which we observe and oversee the growth or progress that is made in regard to that particular project.
“It is not enough to see that the project is completed, we also have to see that the purpose for which this particular project was conceived is achieved.”
One element required to help solve the problems of malnutrition and starvation is a spirit of universal cooperation.
“For example, in Australia, there is a lack of priests and religious persons, so Australia, which is financially supporting India, can be supported as regards to personnel, by India,” Fr Faustine says.
“There should be mutual give and take… everyone has something to give.”
With one of the goals of the Catholic Bishops Social Justice statement for 2013 the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, and charities struggling to meet the needs of the poor, Fr Faustine says now is a good time to do our bit.
“Let us be people for the world,” he says.
“Let me see what is happening all over the world, not limit myself only to my neighbourhood, to my parish, to my state, to my country.
“Let us collectively try to alleviate the suffering that is there in the world; that is my appeal to Australians and also to the world at large.”