VATICAN CITY (CNS): The Vatican did not endorse an 11-page final statement in favour of easing restrictions on and allowing more widespread use of genetically modified crops, especially in poorer nations, said a Vatican official.
“The statement is not a statement of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences because the Pontifical Academy of Sciences as such -80 members – wasn’t consulted about it and will not be consulted about it,” Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the academy’s chancellor, said.
The statement, which was recently made public by a private science-publishing company in the Netherlands, also “has no value as the magisterium of the church,” he said in an e-mail response to questions on December 1.
Later the same day, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, issued a similar communiqué, adding that the pro-GM statement “cannot be considered an official position of the Holy See.”
Some news agencies had mistakenly reported that the statement represented the Vatican’s endorsement of easing regulations on and promoting the use of genetically modified food crops.
The Pontifical Academy of Science’s headquarters hosted a study week in May 2009 on “Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development.”
The final statement summarised the week’s proceedings and recommended that genetic engineering techniques be freed from “excessive, unscientific regulation” so that modern and predictable GM technologies could be used to enhance nutrition and food production everywhere.
It called for greater cooperation among private corporations, governments and non-profit organisations with the aim of increasing funding from governments and charities so that GM crops could be “cost-free” for poorer regions.
