Caritas Europe, Spain

Caritas Europe: “Zero Hunger”, the role of the EU “Nobody should die for want of food. Nobody should suffer from hunger. It is a moral imperative that has absolute priority”: Jorge Nuño Mayer, secretary general of Caritas Europe, on April 15 presented a report drawn up by the Catholic organization in the seat of the European Parliament titled: “The European Union’s role to end hunger by 2025”. The document discussed with various MEPs addresses six major issues in areas of Community competence, namely, the right to food, seen as a fundamental human right; agriculture; environment and climate change; nutrition; “building resilience”; the coherence of development policies, an area in which the EU is the primary world donor. According to Caritas Europe, “The European Union should support the eradication of worldwide hunger as a priority” for the agenda of the coming years and “push for a clear definition of a ‘Zero Hunger’ goal, addressing all the root causes of hunger”. The report, available on the website www.caritas.eu, includes a set of recommendations on “how to create sustainable food systems”, with the commitment of eradicating hunger in the coming decade. Caritas Europe stresses that nearly one billion people are undernourished because of under- and malnutrition. Spain/1: “iMisión”, digital evangelization The first iMisión (iMission) Congress on web evangelization closed in Madrid. The event prompted three major reflections, the organizers pointed out. The first is an invitation to “listening”. It is necessary to “overcome schizophrenia, to be the amiable face of God for contemporary societies, to be amidst people”. The second is that “we cannot succeed if we are alone”. We must create “synergies, showing that we are all a single Church”. The third reflection is that “to evangelize it is necessary to start from bearing Christian witness, to start from everyday life, from joy, good mood, to show coherence with the message” that is being transmitted. iMisión coordinators explained that the “label” describing “iMisioneros” (iMissionaries) is “#iComunión” (iCommunion), “our special vocation in the digital continent”. As for the future of iMisión, the staff pointed out that “the future depends on all of us, since iMisión is not a group of gurus, but the cement that unites the “traces”. So instead of giving answers they asked questions: “Who are you and why do you do it? What values do you or your group convey? How can you contribute to digital evangelization? Jesus is asking of you: who do you think I am and how do you share it with others?”. The Congress was followed via streaming by a thousand people. It was also experienced through social networks. In fact, internauts posted questions to speakers on Twitter under the hashtag #iCongreso, with over 30 million contacts that generated over 12 thousand tweets. Spain/2: New app to pray for the Pope The young Spaniards who created the popular campaign “May Feelings”, through which they promoted the recitation of the Rosary in the month of May, put on the market a free app for cell phones called “Praying for the Pope”. The app is available for mobile devices (iOS and Android) and it enables to pray for the Pope every day. The inventors of the app pointed out that they created it in response of the repeated request by Pope Francis since the beginning of his Pontificate that he asks to all those he meets and that he was customary doing when he served as archbishop of Buenos Aires. “Pray for me”, the Pope always says. With the app the youths of “May Feelings” have four clear goals to achieve: contributing to ensuring that thousands pray for the pope every day; make the Pope known that he is not alone in his commitment at the lead of the Church; facilitating the commitment of praying every day for the Pope with an app conceived for this purpose; making people acknowledge the importance of prayer as a fundamental aspect for the Church. “We intend to help Pope Francis in his difficult task of guiding the Church by inviting society as a whole to pray for him on a daily basis through a device which has become a part of our lives, cell phones”, the app creators said. “The app can be downloaded on the website: http://www.rezar.com/papafrancisco.