Church on Patenting

"Greater concentration of ownership inherent in the new technologies, and laws drawn up to protect them, is set to repeat and worsen one of the great mistakes of the Green Revolution. More dependence and marginalisation loom for the poorest. The inability to contain genetic material, once released into the environment, means that even field trials of new crops are tantamount to uncontrolled, irreversible experiments and invasions of the global commons." .		Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, November 2000, in a statement that called for a moritorium on the growing of GM crops in South Africa
"The introduction of GM crops will intensify landlessness, indebtedness, and poverty and is likely to lead to more and more farmers committing suicide. We further state that the patenting of seeds, genes and life-forms is unethical and a violation of the fundamental rights of people and communities. We affirm sustainable and ecologically sound community-based farming to be the answer to the food security problem. It is imperative to protect, preserve and conserve traditional seeds and diversified farming practices. Such food production methods will meet the nutritional and livelihood security of the society and future generations."		The Penang Declaration, April 2000. Signed by participants in an Asian conference on Genetic Engineering held in Malaysia. These included Catholic Church representatives of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Caritas Pakistan and the Catholic Council of Thailand for Development (CCTD).
"On March 10, 1999 India succumbed to international pressure and agreed to a WTO ruling on legal protection for patents. It must now allow 'exclusive marketing rights for agrochemical and pharmaceutical products' to prepare the ground for the full introduction of product patents. A regulatory welcome mat to India's market and natural resources is being laid."		Selling suicide, Christian Aid Report 1999
"If granting patents on biological material leads to further disadvantage and vulnerability for the poor of the developing world, then patenting, which was once a response to potential injustice against the person of the inventor, now represents a real threat of injustice against the world's poor."		Biopatenting and the Threat to Food Security, CIDSE Statement 2000 (CIDSE is a network of European Catholic Development agencies, including CAFOD, SCIAF and TROCAIRE).
"And because it is gift, life can never be regarded as a possession or as private property, even if the capabilities we now have to improve the quality of life can lead us to think that man is the 'master' of life. The achievements of medicine and biotechnology can sometimes lead man to think of himself as his own creator, and to succumb to the temptation of tampering with 'the tree of life' (Gn 3:24). It is also worth repeating here that not everything that is technically possible is morally acceptable."		Pope John Paul II, message for Lent 2002.
"Man frequently lives as if God does not exist and even puts himself in God's place. Man claims for himself a Creator's right to interfere in the mystery of human life. He wishes to determine human life through genetic manipulation and to establish the limits of death."		Pope John Paul II, August 2002, speaking at an open-air mass in Poland, attended by more than 2 million people.
VERY INTERESTING ..... In February 2002 the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican organised a series of meetings bringing together top U.S. biotechnology experts and church officials. Ambassador Jim Nicholson also offered to fly Vatican officials later in the year to a biotech research facility in the U.S. or in another country to show them firsthand how GM seeds are produced and the benefits of their use. In September 2002, the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote to the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, to ask for the Vatican's endorsement for U.S.-grown genetically modified (GM) grain. The grain, offered to Southern Africa as food aid, had been rejected by Zambia on the grounds that it might be found to damage health long-term, and that it might jeopardise Zambia's profitable organic export trade. Ambassador Nicholson said on 4 October that the fact that Powell personally appealed to The Vatican demonstrated the seriousness with which the U.S. government viewed the situation. See http://www.jctr.org.zm (GMOs and Zambia). Jesuits in Zambia have been influential in campaigning against GM crops. Print this page BACK TO TOP