Pope Leo says world leaders “feeding wars” instead of the hungry

World leaders are “feeding” wars instead of the hungry, Pope Leo said, telling the UN food aid agency that global priorities are badly skewed.

Pope Leo, who has become more outspoken on political issues in recent months, urged governments to increase spending to combat hunger and avoid subjecting food aid to restrictions based on geopolitical considerations, Reuters reports.

“Conflicts are ‘fed’ more readily than people are nourished,” the first US pope said during a visit to the Rome headquarters of the World Food Programme (WFP).

“This reality reflects not only operational shortcomings but also a fundamental imbalance in political and moral priorities,” he added.

The WFP is the world’s largest provider of food aid. Its biggest donor is the United States, which announced a new $800 million contribution last week following earlier cuts by President Donald Trump that more than halved planned US funding.

The pope, who drew Trump’s ire earlier this year after criticising the Iran war, did not mention any specific leaders during Monday’s remarks.

He said global humanitarian crises were increasingly being pushed into a “secondary place among international priorities”.

Countries, he added, “have increasingly allocated their resources towards national security, economic growth and domestic stability, disregarding the close link between these issues and multilateral cooperation”.

Pope Leo was welcomed at the WFP by Cindy McCain, who stepped down as executive director of the agency earlier this year for health reasons.

The WFP, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, provided 15.6 billion daily rations to 121 million people in 2025, funded by $6.5 billion in donations, according to the agency.

The pope said access to food is “a fundamental human right grounded in the dignity of every person”.

He added that combating hunger not only supports those in need but also helps address the root causes of geopolitical instability.

“Food security is an essential component of global and integral security,” the pope said.

By Vafa Guliyeva