I've been blogging a bit about the GMO debate going on here in the Philippines. And, today Dean Jorge Bocobo had an article in the PDI about the matter.

This is my reply to that article.

While I admire his efforts to edify his readers on GMOs, on the sole matter of stating that the Vatican and Pope John Paul II has blessed GMO's with a "prudent YES!" I am not entirely sure that Mr. Bocobo has done his (necessary) research.

It's ironic that he would say in fact that "Religious folks, (running or not) who think GMOs are the new thalidomide, should do penance for mental sloth by reading 2,000 times" the document that purports the Vatican to have "blessed" GMOs, where, it seems that he didn't bother reading it himself. I certainly feel that had he done so, he would have come to the same conclusions as I do below.

First, let's start by understanding the context in which GMO's were looked at by the Vatican in the first place. These documents are amassed in the proceedings of a working group. All the documents from this group, composed of scientists from various disciplines, can be found in the vatican website here. (Scroll down a bit and look for 099).

Knowing the context of these papers is key to understanding exactly where the Vatican stands on GMOs: although within the proceedings there exists a working paper on GMO (which I will get to shortly) nowhere, really, does the Pope express implicit agreement that GMOs are all right. And, certainly, nowhere does the Vatican "bless" Bt Corn "with a prudent YES!"

In fact, thoughout the entire proceedings of this 1999 Working Group of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope pretty much just dwells on the humanism and responsibility needed in science. Nothing specific is mentioned in his Address, which is here.

Now, in Part 5 of the proceedings, there appears a Study-Document that deals with GMOs. This Study-Document (I don't need to emphasize the working status of this "Study-Document") deals with the role of GMOs in feeding a growing world population. Therein, it states under the heading "The Potential for Genetically Modified Food Plants" that GMOs "can play an important role in improving nutrition and agricultural products, especially in the developing world."

The Study-Document states its reservations in the application of GMO and recommends conditions for its use, among them, issues with research methods and government role in ensuring the validity of GMOs. The Study-Document goes on to tackle issues at large with GMOs quite succinctly, and, in closing, states that GMOs "constitute an important part of human innovation and they clearly offer substantial benefits for the improvement of the human condition worldwide" but tempers this statement by saying that there indeed exists a "moral challenge for scientists and governments throughout the world."

I don't see any statements within the 500+ page document that even comes close to a "YES", and nowhere does the Pope himself deal with the matter of GMOs. These are scientists of the Pontifical Academy offering recommendations within the confines of their academy, not the Pope (nor the Vatican per se) issuing an Encyclical, much less a blessing on Bt Corn.

As I try to explain to myself Bocobo's article, I found an article citing a statement from a certain Bishop Elio Sgreccia, who is Vice President of the Pontifical Academy. In it, Sgreccia says that "We give [GMO] a prudent ‘yes,’" he said. "We cannot agree with the position of some groups that say it is against the will of God to meddle with the genetic make-up of plants and animals."

That, in all probability, may be the source of the "yes", and certainly not the proceedings of the work group.

Other sites on the internet carried this article, and I actually cannot, to my dismay, find the actual press release from the Vatican. The truth is, the sites that carried this article are all pro-GMO. Not that I am against GMOs, but, my objective here is to clarify the matter of attributing the "prudent yes" to the Vatican and the Pope.

Hey, the last person you want to misquote is the Pope. Thanks, Dean Jorge Bocobo, for making me doubt. Now, I am enlightened.