Lent marks a call to live out God's love by supporting those in desperate need across the globe, said Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace.
"As Catholics in a global Church, we witness to the power of God's love through our presence and assistance to those who are vulnerable," Bishop Zaidan, who heads the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon, said in a statement issued on Ash Wednesday, March 5.
"This Lent, poor families around the world are struggling to access the basic necessities which they need in order to survive," he said.
Bishop Zaidan noted that "right now, children are at risk of acute malnutrition," while "pregnant mothers are not receiving essential care at critical moments during pregnancy, and efforts to prevent deadly diseases like measles, polio, and pneumonia are paused."
Amid such suffering, "we know that each child who is hungry and each mother and father who struggle to care for their family is precious in the eyes of God and is a neighbor in need of our loving care," he said.
"As Catholics in a global Church, we witness to the power of God's love through our presence and assistance to those who are vulnerable," he said.
That witness "is lived out through the work of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), which is the official overseas relief and development agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and a member of Caritas Internationalis," said Bishop Zaidan.
He asked the faithful to participate in the Lenten CRS Rice Bowl initiative, through which 75% of donations support the agency's worldwide humanitarian efforts, with the remaining 25% of the funds supporting relief efforts in local U.S. communities.
Bishop Zaidan also highlighted the USCCB's annual CRS collection, which benefits the agency and other efforts to assist those in need.
CRS's efforts have taken on new urgency amid Trump administration halts on foreign aid.
"As we approach the season of Lent, let us respond to the invitation of Pope Francis, champion of the poor, for whose speedy recovery we continue to pray," said Bishop Zaidan.
As of 2022 alone, childhood malnutrition left more than 148 million (22.3%) of the world's children under age 5 too short (a condition known as "stunting"), 45 million too thin for their height (or "wasting") and 37 million overweight, according to jointly reported data from UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the World Bank.
Obesity is regarded as a "paradoxical" form of malnutrition by researchers, since lack of nutritious food can, along with poor diet choices, alter the body's metabolism.
In June 2024, UNICEF said that growing inequality, conflict and climate concerns -- along with the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic -- have left 181 million, or 1 in 4, children in severe food poverty, with the majority (65%) living in 20 countries. Of those, 64 million are in South Asia, and 59 million in sub-Saharan Africa.
In February, WHO warned that close to 300,000 women throughout the world die in pregnancy or childbirth, with more than 2 million babies perishing within their first month after birth and more than 2 million infants stillborn.
The agency said Feb. 21 such losses, "which bring tremendous sadness and heartache to millions of families around the world," are concentrated in poor and conflict- or crisis-ridden nations.
WHO also said that "current funding constraints could further jeopardize progress" in addressing the deaths, which the agency described as "preventable."
In November, WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that measles cases had surged 20% from 2022 to 2023, with 10.3 million cases in the latter year. While measles can be prevented through two doses of vaccine, more than 22 million children missed their first dose in 2023, the agencies said.
Polio, also preventable through childhood vaccination, spiked in Afghanistan and Pakistan during 2024, with WHO executive board members gathering in Geneva earlier this month to discuss urgent measures for eradicating it. Other polio variants have been detected in Nigeria, Congo, Somalia, Yemen and five European nations.
In Gaza, more than 600,000 children were vaccinated against the disease amid a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war, and Dr. Razia Pendse, WHO chef de cabinet, said during the agency's Geneva meeting that vaccinating children in need is not a question of medical or technical resources, but of "entirely geopolitical" factors.
UNICEF reported in November that pneumonia, which "kills more children than any other infectious disease," causes the deaths of over 700,000 children under 5 each year -- including some 190,000 newborns -- with "almost all of these deaths … preventable."
In his March 5 statement, Bishop Zaidan quoted Pope Francis' 2020 encyclical "Fratelli Tutti," in which the pope called on the faithful to be "neighbors without borders."
"May we pray, fast, abstain, and give alms, that all who are precious in God's eyes may have what they need to not only survive, but also thrive," he said.
