20 Lire - Pavlvs VI FAO

Issued as part of the Vatican's participation in the FAO's Freedom from Hunger campaign, this coin belongs to a broader series coordinated globally in 1968 to promote agricultural development in impoverished nations. The Vatican's involvement was consistent with Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progressio, published the previous year, which argued that development — particularly food security — was a moral obligation of wealthier nations toward poorer ones. Few sovereign issuers tied their FAO coinage so directly to an active doctrinal position.