Vatican won't challenge RP bishops on GMO

MANILA, Philippines - Vatican officials had expressed support for genetically modified crops (GMOs) but are unwilling to challenge bishops from the Philippines and other Catholic leaders who disagree, claiming GMO is being pushed by Washington, according to leaked diplomatic cables from the US embassy in the Vatican.

Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks leaked the diplomatic cable “Pope Turns Up The Heat on Environmental Protection,” a report of the American embassy in the Vatican to Washington.

It noted that bishops in the Philippines strongly protest GMOs even as the Vatican’s scientific academy has stated that there is no evidence GMOs are harmful, and that they could indeed be part of the solution to global food security.

The leaked classified information presented the American embassy’s lobby to the Vatican for a louder voice to encourage individual Church leaders to reconsider their critical view on GMOs.

The embassy reported to Washington after Pope Benedict XVI addressed the opening of the World Food Summit urging leaders to care for the world’s hungry and protect the environment.

At the UN General Assembly, the Vatican nuncio stressed the need for a comprehensive international energy policy that protects the environment and limits climate change.

Rafael Foley, the embassy’s political officer, said “Vatican officials remain largely supportive of genetically modified crops as a vehicle for protecting the environment while feeding the hungry, but – at least for now – are unwilling to challenge bishops who disagree.”

In a separate meeting on Nov. 11, Foley spoke with Monsignor James Reinert, the point person on food security and biotechnology at the Vatican’s Council of Justice and Peace, a Vatican think tank on social issues.

Reinert said the Vatican agrees that countries must be empowered to increase domestic agricultural production and that GMOs have a role in this process, but not everybody in the Church is comfortable with them.

The Vatican cannot force all bishops to endorse biotechnology, Reinert said, particularly if their opposition has to do with concerns over protecting profits of large corporations who hold the patents for the crops, versus feeding the hungry.

Reinert noted that in the Philippines, the Catholic clergy strongly protested the GMOs.

South African Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier’s Nov. 16 comments to a news agency that “Africans do not need GMOs, but water” is another example of why Church leaders are skeptical about the potential benefits of new biotechnologies.

While the Vatican’s message on caring for the environment is loud and clear, its message on biotechnologies is still low key.

Quietly supportive, the Church considers the choice of whether to embrace GMOs as a technical decision for farmers and governments.

The diplomatic cable cited the Vatican’s own scientific academy stating that there is no evidence GMOs are harmful, and that they could indeed be part of addressing global food security.

However, when individual Church leaders, for ideological reasons or ignorance, speak out against GMOs, the Vatican does not – at least not yet – feel that it is its duty to challenge them.

The embassy said the “diplomatic post will continue to lobby the Vatican to speak up in favor of GMOs, in the hope that a louder voice in Rome will encourage individual Church leaders elsewhere to reconsider their critical views.”

The leaked classified information also indicated the Vatican is publicly stressing in various fora the need to care for the environment in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit.

Pope Benedict XVI places caring for the environment as a central social, economic and moral issue to his papacy.

The Pope’s proposal to curb environmental degradation is for people everywhere to reject excessive materialism and consumerism.

In the Vatican’s view, unsustainable lifestyles in developed countries – and not population growth worldwide – is to blame for global warming.

Vatican officials claimed the planet has the capacity to feed and sustain its expanding population, provided resources are properly distributed and waste controlled.

Until recently, Vatican officials often noted that the countries that released most of the greenhouse gases were not the world’s most populous.

As China and India industrialize and release more greenhouse gases, however, the Vatican may find it more difficult to blame climate change on lifestyles only.

Even as this happens, however, the Vatican will continue to oppose aggressive population control measures to fight hunger or global warming.

In remarks at the opening of the World Food Security Summit in Rome on Nov. 16, the Pope devoted over one third of his speech to the link between food security and environmental degradation.

The Pope stressed that states have an obligation to future generations to reduce environmental degradation.

Citing the probable link between environmental destruction and climate change, the Pope stated that protecting the environment requires “change in the lifestyles of individuals and communities, in habits of consumption and in perceptions of what is genuinely needed.”

The Pope urged the international community to promote development while safeguarding the planet.

The Pope also stated that access to “sufficient, healthy and nutritious” food is a fundamental right upheld by the Catholic Church.

Linking development with use of agricultural technologies (biotechnologies), the Pope stressed good governance and further infrastructure development as essential to increasing food security over the long term.

The report indicated the Pope’s mention of agricultural technologies is a “small but significant step towards more vocal Vatican support of biotechnologies.”