Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 16 October 2026
The Pope's World Food Day message to FAO: a "new global food order", bread never a "weapon of war". And two new auxiliary bishops for Madrid
On World Food Day, the Holy See Press Office today, 16 October, published Pope Leo XIV's message to the Director-General of FAO, Qu Dongyu. The text, signed "From the Vatican, 12 October 2026", was originally written in English (Bulletin). This year's theme is "Innovate today to feed tomorrow" (our rendering of the theme from the Italian text).
The message. The Pope starts from a paradox: global progress is advancing ever faster, while hunger and poverty persist. Hunger, he writes, is not a technical or financial problem but a profound "anthropological and ethical crisis".
True innovation, he says, is measured not only by the quantity of grain produced but also by the protection of human dignity and the integrity of the ecosystem. When technology strips the soil of its fertility or drives farmers from their land for purely economic reasons, it is not progress but "a sophisticated form of destruction" (our translation from the Italian text).
Hunger, the Pope writes, is not a statistical anomaly but is caused mainly by a lack of political will and collective solidarity; access to adequate food is a fundamental human right.
Bread, Leo XIV warns, should be neither an instrument of geopolitical pressure nor a volatile financial asset, and must never become a "weapon of war".
He asks FAO and its member states for moral courage and calls for a "new global food order", in which technological innovation is unconditionally subordinated to God-given human dignity and the universal common good, and urges redirecting resources from the arms industry to sustainable agricultural research.
What it means. The message moves the question of hunger from the technical to the moral and political plane: the means are there, the will is missing. In line with the Church's social teaching, Leo XIV links innovation, justice and care for creation, and asks that technology remain at the service of the person. Tomorrow, he concludes, is the harvest of what we sow today through our decisions.
The message was signed on 12 October, the day before the Pope's surgery at the Gemelli hospital.
Resignations and appointments. In today's Bulletin N. 0816 (text), the Pope appointed two auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Madrid (Spain):
- Fernando Murga Gómez, a priest of Madrid, until now Moderator of the archdiocesan Curia, assigning him the titular see of Tasbalta. Born in Bilbao in 1965 and trained as an architect, he was ordained a priest in 2011.
- Andrés Martínez Esteban, a priest of Madrid, until now Vicar General of the Ordinariate for Eastern Catholics in Spain, assigning him the titular see of Temuniana. Born in Madrid in 1971, a Church historian, he was ordained a priest in 1997.