The Agrarian Vision of the Holy See
Catholic Social Teachings and Rural Life

It was just about one year ago – April 24, 2005 – that Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his first Mass as the new Bishop of Rome. In his homily, he said "at this moment there is no need for me to present a program of governance", but rather "to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and will of the Lord, to be guided by Him."

Since his inaugural address, the Holy Father has offered reflections on hunger and rural development at international conferences, building on the constant teachings of the Church and the necessity of all to work toward the common good. We at the National Catholic Rural Life Conference watch for statements from the Vatican that guide our work in the cause of rural life. In this issue of Catholic Rural Life, we have pulled together a few statements that speak to the needs of the rural world as well as the causes of hunger. The Holy See emphasizes the basic right of each person to be free of hunger, and the importance for all of us to support rural communities in ways that safeguard family farms.


Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the participants in the 33rd Conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
November 24, 2005
(Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Your Excellencies, Mr. Director General, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen! This is our first meeting and it allows me to see at close hand your efforts in the service of a great ideal: that of liberating humanity from hunger.

Humanity is presently experiencing a worrisome paradox: side-by-side with ever new and positive advances in the areas of the economy, science and technology, we are witnessing a continuing increase of poverty. I am certain that the experience which you have accumulated in these years can help to develop a method adequate to the task of combating hunger and poverty, one shaped by that concrete realism which has always characterized the work of your distinguished Organization.

Today more than ever, there is a need for concrete, effective instruments for eliminating the potential for conflict between different cultural, ethnic and religious visions. There is a need to base international relations on respect for the person and on the cardinal principles of peaceful coexistence and mutual acceptance by the peoples who make up the one human family. There is likewise a need to recognize that technical progress, necessary as it is, is not everything. True progress is that which integrally safeguards the dignity of the human being and which enables each people to share its own spiritual and material resources for the benefit of all.


SAFEGUARDING SMALL FAMILY FARMS

An encouraging sign is the initiative to discuss the issue of agrarian reform and rural development. This is not a new area, but one in which the Church has always shown interest, out of particular concern for small rural farmers who represent a significant part of the active population especially in developing countries. One course of action might be to ensure that rural populations receive the resources and tools which they need, beginning with education and training, as well as organizational structures capable of safeguarding small family farms and cooperatives (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 71).

In a few days many will be meeting in Hong Kong (WTO 6th Ministerial Conference) for negotiations on international commerce, particularly with regard to farm products. The Holy See is confident that a sense of responsibility and solidarity with the most disadvantaged will prevail, so that narrow interests and the logic of power will be set aside. It must not be forgotten that the vulnerability of rural areas has significant repercussions on the subsistence of small farmers and their families if they are denied access to the market.

A consistent course of action would call for recognizing the essential role of the rural family as a guardian of values and a natural agent of solidarity in relationships between the generations. Consequently, support should also be given to the role of rural women and at the same time to children for whom not only nutrition but also basic education must be assured.

I nonetheless offer these reflections for your consideration, since I am convinced that the hearts of all need to be increasingly open to the many people in our world who lack their daily bread. May Almighty God illuminate your deliberations and grant you the strength needed to persevere in your indispensable efforts to serve the common good.


Excerpts from a reflection by the Holy See on the occasion of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization
December 13-18, 2005

The Holy See follows with great interest the ongoing trade talks and desires on this occasion of the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference to express some reflections on key issues in the discussions of the Doha Development Agenda. The Doha Round of negotiations offers an occasion to pursue the common good of the entire human family. By the common good is intended the good of the whole human person and of all human beings, something quite different from an individualistic conception of well-being.

Indeed, the common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains "common" because it is indivisible and because only together it is possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future.

At the core of all social and economic relations, and hence of trade relations, is found the human person, with dignity and inalienable human rights. Trade liberalization is not to be enthroned as an end in itself but as a means for achieving ultimate objectives such as the integral development of each and every person along with the reduction of poverty. Therefore, international trade rules should be aligned with a wider commitment to human development and to the lifting of living standards of the poor.


A VISION OF WTO

If one could assign virtues to institutions, justice should be the first virtue of any institution. Justice for WTO could mean: equal rights of benefiting from trade to all Member States and addressing the economic and social inequalities to the greater well-being of the least developed. What is needed is an abandonment of special interests that disregard the common good. Special interests need to be overcome by a global solidarity, where the rich and more powerful States recognize and assume responsibility towards the destiny of those who are poor and weak. Marginalised countries must be included in the international trading-system, which in turn must be seen as having not only economic but also ethical values.


The Holy See at the international conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development
March 6-10, 2006

At this conference in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the Vatican took the opportunity for attentive reflection on the situation of the rural world and for formulating adequate responses to the concern for justice and the desire for development of those who live there.

The topics under consideration are important for the human family and so they are of direct concern to the Holy See and the Catholic Church, which according to their nature and mission are called to support in every circumstance the cause of the human person. Political leaders, heads of international organizations and representatives of civil society have a chance to provide directives for the future of over 900 million people, representing 75% of the world’s poor, who live in rural areas in conditions of extreme poverty. Their future appears increasingly uncertain.


GLOBAL SOLIDARITY

It is necessary to reinforce international solidarity in order to tackle directly the great challenge posed by the goal of the development of peoples and specifically by the commitment to guarantee effective food security for humanity. The rural world is not to be treated as secondary or forgotten altogether, thereby putting at risk its positive characteristics in the social, economic and spiritual order.

In considering the numerous issues linked to agrarian reform and to rural development, it is helpful to recall the unchanging principle that "God destined the world and all it contains for all people and nations" (Gaudium et Spes, 69) as an inspiring and foundational criterion of social and economic order involving and motivating every member of the human family.

This criterion assumes greater importance when one considers the unequal distribution of goods within individual countries. In the rural world, deprivation, exploitation, lack of access to the market and social exclusion become more acute in the absence of a context of guarantees protecting those who work on the land. Such people experience precarious life conditions, since their work is affected by adverse climatic and natural factors, and also by a lack of resources for coping with the scarcity or loss of harvests, and the consequent gradual abandonment of agricultural activity for urban areas in the often illusory search for better alternatives to poverty.

The precarious situation in rural areas of developing countries is also affected by the tendency of industrialized countries to sustain and subsidize agricultural production, trade and the consumption of foodstuffs. To introduce correctives to this situation means also to appeal to a concrete concept of justice capable of being implemented in policies, rules, norms and acts of solidarity.


RESPECT FOR CREATION

Then there is a further element which conditions the future of rural areas related to the responsibility of present generations for the conservation and protection of nature and its resources, as well as the various ecosystems

which belong to the rural world – agriculture, forestry, fauna, water sources, atmosphere. Often the lack of a correct relation between the earth and those who cultivate it, as well as other situations which affect small farmers, are the cause of an excessive exploitation of natural resources with no other goal than immediate profit. All of this compromises the fertility of the land, respect for the cycle of the seasons and hence the preservation of territory that could be cultivated for the use of future generations.

Experience thus far shows that the criterion of environmental sustainability alone, placed at the centre of development strategies in recent decades, cannot constitute an effective response unless it is based on an authentic human ecology which, while asserting the responsibility of the human person towards himself, others, creation and the Creator, recognizes that "man remains above all a being who seeks the truth and strives to live in that truth, deepening his understanding of it through a dialogue that involves past and future generations." (Centesimus Annus, 49)


IMPORTANCE OF THE FAMILY

In rural areas, then, a firmly based and healthy concept of human relations has to include the importance of the family: the rural family is in fact called to manage with its work the little family enterprise, but also to transmit the idea of relations based on the exchange of mutual knowledge, values, ready assistance and respect.

When the family encounters difficulties or is no longer able to carry out its function, the entire rural community suffers the grave and painful con-sequences, such as when concepts of marriage and family life become detached from the values proper to them or when familial relations are influenced or even dominated by selfish, hedonistic or simply materialistic notions. If these considerations are to be correctly applied to the demands of rural development, then it must be recognized that the family, like other primary social aggregates and structures, precedes the state’s institutional apparatus and is to be duly respected and valued in its essence and in its organization of property rights, of productive activity and of the use of labor techniques.


SUBSIDIARITY

Examining the image that authentic family life can imprint on the social order, we rediscover an application of the principle of subsidiarity that is nowadays considered by the international community as an instrument for regulating every relation and therefore contributes to the definition of institutional forms and economic laws. Through a proper subsidiarity, public authorities, from the local level to the most international dimension, can truly operate for the development of rural areas, at the same time promoting the common good, knowing however that this can only be achieved if proportionally more attention is given to those in greater need. Peasant farmers without land and smallholders are thus the first who must receive attention within comprehensive programs of cooperation, based on partnership with civil society, at the local and functional level, in guaranteeing a real development that respects their social, cultural, religious, economic and institutional identity.


LAND OWNERSHIP

The reflection that is asked of states taking part in the Conference includes among other things the question of land ownership, a matter of fundamental importance in economic and agrarian policies that can effectively promote rural development and at the same time guarantee social justice, political stability and peaceful coexistence. It is well known in fact, as numerous economic analyses have pointed out, that insecure access to land is one of the principal causes of rural poverty.

This is a complex matter that often implies the need for comprehensive agrarian reforms which cannot be reduced to a simple redivision and redistribution of land. Instead they must form part of rural development strategies which, as well as seeing to the necessary investments in public infrastructure and social services, take note of the requirements of the agricultural sector, professionalism in planning, organizing and implementing the reforms. The issue becomes even more acute when conflict situations, epidemics and forced migration cause the responsibility for the nuclear family to fall exclusively on the woman. Traditional customs and rules often prevent the woman from having access to landed property rights, therefore necessitating measures aimed at granting due juridical recognition of her role and her capacity to the woman with family and social responsibilities.


SOURCE OF FAITH IN RURAL WORLD

The Holy See has always given particular attention to the rural world and its values, fully cognizant of the fact that its principal characteristics – its human dimension, direct knowledge of the order, harmony and beauty of nature, satisfaction of labor, generous exchange of services in correct individual conduct and relations with others, to name but a few – are constantly being rediscovered in every part of the world. Moreover, the Holy See realizes how much importance rural society attaches to religion, present in individual and community life, in work and in family life, and above all as a source of moral principles capable of permeating society, providing stability and integrity in the face of the difficulties and setbacks of daily life.


National Catholic Rural Life Conference
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This article was published in the Spring 2006 issue of Catholic Rural Life©. No portion of this article may be reproduced without written permission from The National Catholic Rural Life Conference. To purchase the Spring 2006 issue of Catholic Rural Life, please contact The National Catholic Rural Life Conference office at 4625 Beaver Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50310-2199, call (515) 270-2634, or e-mail ncrlc@mchsi.com. The cost is $2.50 an issue plus postage and handling.