Pope Francis has encouraged the work to eradicate hunger in the world carried out by Manos Unidas, a Spanish charitable organization founded 65 years ago within the women’s branch of Spanish Catholic Action.
Manos Unidas – Catholic Committee of the Campaign against World Hunger was founded in 1959 in response to an appeal made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that denounced the “hunger for bread, hunger of culture and the hunger for God that a large part of humanity suffers.”
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This is what Pope Francis remembered when receiving a delegation from Manos Unidas at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, according to Vatican News.
The Catholic association has nearly 6,500 volunteers, more than 70,000 members and collaborators and almost 160 people work there with the aim of eradicating hunger, poverty and their causes.
In the year 2023Manos Unidas dedicated more than 40 million euros to various programs that benefited more than 1.2 million people in 55 different countries, especially in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.
Despite this great work, Pope Francis stated that “they barely cover 15% of hunger in the world. “It’s very hard, very hard.”
“Thinking about the work that, with the sensitivity and strength of feminine genius, you carry out in the eradication of those evils that continue to affect so many nations, I would like to make reference to the figure of the Mother of God, whom we celebrate in her Immaculate Conception. Conception. Because the Virgin Mary is the Woman par excellence,” added the Pontiff.
“She is the fully realized model of our humanity, through which, by the grace of God, we can all contribute to improve our world,” said Pope Francis.
In reference to Manos Unidas, he added that “thanks to their characteristics and their intuition and reality as mothers, daughters and wives” they carry out their mission of “fighting against hunger, underdevelopment and lack of education” and working to “eradicate structural causes that produce them.”
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.