Pope Leo XIV will visit the Rome headquarters of the World Food Program on June 22, to meet with participants in the annual executive board session and with WFP staff and families. He goes at the invitation of the WFP executive director; he visited the Rome WFP offices in October 2025 to mark World Food Day and commemorate the organization’s 80th anniversary. The Holy See press office announced this month’s visit on June 17.
Pope Leo designated food sufficiency as the church-wide monthly prayer intention for May, phrasing it, “so that everyone might have food.” The WFP estimates that 318 million people worldwide are facing food shortages this year, and that 45 million or more may die from the impacts of the warfare in Southwest Asia.
On June 17, the WFP and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), also headquartered in Rome, issued a report on “Hunger Hotspots” and a warning. WFP Acting Executive Director Carl Skau said, “Without action now, millions more are expected to face worsening levels of hunger in the months ahead, pushing some closer to famine.
The report identifies 13 nations of great concern: Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, the Gaza Strip, Afghanistan, Congo, Myanmar, Haiti, Mali, Somalia, Nigeria, Lebanon, and Madagascar.
Overall, world funding for food relief and related humanitarian aid has dropped by nearly 60% since 2022, while at the same time, the economies of many nations have remained severely insufficient due to the lack of a new world economic system favoring the build-up of production. The WFP appeal for $10 billion in aid funding for 2026 remains severely undersubscribed.
One welcome gesture is that the United States yesterday announced a pledge of $800 million to the WFP, whose staff said it would help 38 million people across 37 nations.
