As UN declares 2023 as Year of Millets, Church asks faithful to shun culture of waste

Panaji: The Church in Goa has asked faithful to shun the culture of waste during meals and parties while people elsewhere suffer from hunger and malnutrition.
It has asked the faithful to use the internet to find out how many people went hungry, were shivering in the cold or drenched in floods, and how many in their parish were lonely, sick, mourning and migrants during Christmas 2022.
In the latest edition of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman’s magazine Renovacao, with a child holding a plate with the symbol of peace on the front cover, the Church also asked the faithful to recollect the money they’ve spent on unnecessary things and how people at parishes and religious functions forget that Jesus was born in a stable.
“Our brotherly sisterly-ness has to move out from our religiousness and flow into humanness and humaneness. We all know that when the basic necessities of life are not found or met with, there is robbery, cheating, fights and even murders,” stated editor of the magazine Fr Aleixo Menezes.
“Let this be another resolution for 2023; protection of humanness for food of humans,” he stated, adding, “One cannot have peace without food, one cannot have food without environment, one cannot have an environment without peace”. The magazine also speaks of the wonderful celebration of the preparation of the kunsvad by the families as a symbol of sharing Christmas joy.
“Unfortunately the family preparation has been replaced by hotels having functions of cake preparation, and the sharing of kunsvad has become the sharing of purchased Christmas joy,” the magazine reads.
It also asked its followers to think of the people in Ukraine who experienced Christmas in the dark and cold far from their homes due to the devastation caused by ten months of war as well of the Syria people who are scarred by conflict as well as in the Holy Land, Lebanon, Yemen, Myanmar, Iran, Afghanistan, Haiti.