Remember that if you want to go directly to Fratelli Tutti, click here. This and the next few paragraphs fall under the title of “A ‘throwaway’ world.” It doesn’t take genius to figure out that the 1% and some associates think little of the rest of humanity. The pandemic has certainly drawn that more into the fore.
18. Some parts of our human family, it appears, can be readily sacrificed for the sake of others considered worthy of a carefree existence. Ultimately, “persons are no longer seen as a paramount value to be cared for and respected, especially when they are poor and disabled, ‘not yet useful’ – like the unborn, or ‘no longer needed’ – like the elderly. We have grown indifferent to all kinds of wastefulness, starting with the waste of food, which is deplorable in the extreme”.[Address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See(11 January 2016): AAS 108 (2016), 120]
Wasting food doesn’t fall in the same category of gravity as the concerns of abortion or euthanasia, but I would agree with Pope Francis it can betray a like attitude of wastefulness. To be clear, not every abortion or leftover is a matter of being selfish. There’s no doubt the notion of waste is well with modern sensibilities. We have much, and there is often the promise of plenty more. So, why bother about conserving resources of employees, children, gasoline, or cake?
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Catholic Sensibility 