VATICAN CITY (CNS): The head of the Vatican’s justice and peace council opened a controversial seminar on genetically modified food last week acknowledging sharp differences of opinion and serious vested interests in promoting or excluding their use.
Council president, Cardinal Renato Martino, told participants on November 10 that human beings must use their intelligence to cultivate, and not destroy, the good things God has created.
Cardinal Martino told the participants, mainly scientists and government officials, that the meeting was designed to gather information about the safety, economics and ethical concerns surrounding genetically modified foods.
The information, he said, could serve as background for a future “ethical and pastoral discernment” regarding the products, but he gave no indication of when the Vatican might take an official position on genetically modified foods.
Cardinal Martino told participants the Vatican, like many agencies and governments around the world, had been subject to “pressures coming from multiple sources” both for and against endorsing the use of modified foods and plants.
Just days before the seminar opened, the Philippine bishops’ Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace released a letter sent to Cardinal Martino expressing concern that so many of the seminar participants were known supporters of genetically modified food or were connected to companies that produce the food and hold patents on the seeds.
The Italian Conference of Missionary Institutes, in a November 6 statement, said Catholic moral and ethical teaching urges caution in supporting new technologies until they can be proven safe for people and for the environment.
