Video Transcript Richard Pates Roman Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, IA

We deeply believe that we are all one human family – that we share the bounty of God’s goodness or we should share -- and therefore, because the availability of food is there, it’s a question of having the determination to really feed our brothers and sisters, to overcome the suffering that we feel is really not justified because of the fact of the bounty of food and also we want to render to them the dignity they are entitled to as children of God.

What would it mean to end hunger?

It would mean that we’ve responded to God’s call. That we’ve been able to really see within the hearts and eyes of our sisters and brothers in the human family – authentic relationship in that we will have responded to what God is really asking us to do, that hopefully we’ll be able to see through His eyes and not our own eyes, that we’ll really have made faith come alive and really responsive to our relationship with God. So it’d be a great day, a happy day. I think that we would really feel the experience of what it means to live as a human family.

Being from I’m particularly aware of how much food there is and how possible it really is to address those causes. So your heart really goes out to the people and especially the young people who retain a very positive spirit, an upbeat spirit in spite of their hunger. But it could be addressed with attention to it. I think not only producing food in our country but enabling them, even more importantly to produce food to render the dignity, to utilize the availability of resources that are right there but that need somehow to be supported through our efforts and our help and our investment.

How can we be stronger advocates?

I think the very first thing is you know, that we live in the wealthiest nation in the world, in history as a matter of fact. And so we have as I say the resources that are very very significant. NGO’s, non- governmental agencies, can do a tremendous amount of good, but our country probably could do the most and do it most immediately if we chose to have our priorities in order to really have respect for all of our sisters and brothers in the human family. So if they really want to be up front and move in a good direction I think, it might take some patience. But to really encourage them to work hard in advocacy to make, you know, hunger the number one priority for our government to move in that direction. Because it can be accomplished but we have to have the will, the desire and really the relationship – the desire that we see everybody in relationship to us in the human family and the willingness to go about it.

So I would say advocacy would be the first thing, and secondly to really have a human feeling as you say. We’re not just there kind of to feed people as an objective, but to see, to look into their eyes and understand, you know that we really are sisters and brothers with them – have a soul relationship with them too, which I think a highlight of what is trying to say. He said just don’t look at them

425 3rd Street, S.W., Suite 1200, Washington, D.C. 20024

202.639.9400 Fax 202.639.9401 Toll Free 800.822.7323 www.bread.org as objectives, you know objectively as objects that we’re going to help in some sort of a superior way. But the responsibility we have to relate and to share and to really look and appreciate them.

Changing the politics of hunger.

There’s groups that are being organized to make hunger and poverty a very high priority, if not priority one with the politicians who are running for office. And so we’re trying to get under their skin, we’re trying to move that direction and just to say that what we’re trying to do would be enhanced immeasurably if that would be followed up as they move to other parts of the country, after they harvest Iowa and get all the support they possibly are searching for if we could join in a real strong coalition going forward to really press this issue and raise it to a high priority in the campaign. We don’t legislate morality, we’re concerned about the morality of legislation and how that will impact our relationships with one another. Hunger is obviously a moral issue that everybody – God intends all to survive to strive well—and so we bring the issue and we ask how are they going to respond because we’re not going to say you have to vote this way or that way, but how is a particularly individual seeking office going to respond to this very significant moral issue in terms of what he or she would do in office. It’s very important.