Pope Francis (CNS/Paul Haring)

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Vague concerns and long-winded reports about hunger must be turned into action with policies that guarantee access to food, and lifestyles that stop wasting and start sharing, Pope Francis said.

People’s tendency to run and hide from difficult issues is natural, which means sometimes “instead of acting, we prefer to delegate, at every level,” the pope said June 11 in an address to participants in an annual conference on hunger organized by the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In fact, avoiding hard truths is something “we often prefer even if we then won’t miss a meeting, a conference or drafting a document” addressing the problem at hand, he said.

People must respond concretely to the urgent imperative that “access to necessary food is a right for all people. And rights do not allow for exceptions,”…