Genetically Modified (GM) foods are creating a stir as advocates for feeding the hungry and the Don't Mess With Nature crowd go at it.
This article signals that the winds of change may be fluffing up some cassocks at the Vatican.
But the quotes attributed to what looks like a homily given by JPII don't specifically address GM foods:
In 2000, for example, Pope John Paul II, speaking at a special Vatican mass dedicated to agriculture, called on farmers to "resist the temptation of high productivity and profit that work to the detriment of the respect of nature," adding that "when (farmers) forget this basic principle and become tyrants of the earth rather than its custodians ... sooner or later the earth rebels."
This could easily have been referring to farming practices that have nothing to do with genetic modification.
The best quote from the article:
It's "easy to say no to GM food if your stomach is full."
That from Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, professor of canon law at the Pontifical Urban University.
O'Reilly would admire its pithiness.
And here's the snarky last paragraph that seems to have at least some truth:
Although views from the Vatican usually do not have an impact on policy in developed countries, it's opinions are thought to be taken into serious consideration when laws are developed in Catholic parts of the developing world, such as South and Central America, and parts of Africa and southeast Asia.
"It's easy to say no to GM food if your stomach is full." I love it! I don't see this as a reversal by the Church. As one gains new and more detailed on a subject, one's opinions and insights into it can change. We aren't still preaching that the Earth is the center of the universe are we?
The same people who criticize the Church for being too rigid for today's world are the first to scream when it embraces a change they don't like.
Here's where you can find the Pope's alleged anti-GM quote:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/
homilies/2000/documents/
hf_jp-ii_hom_20001112_jubilagric_en.html
"4. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, be grateful to the Lord, but at the same time be proud of the task that your work assigns to you. Work in such a way that you resist the temptations of a productivity and profit that are detrimental to the respect for nature. God entrusted the earth to human beings "to till it and keep it" (cf. Gn 2: 15). When this principle is forgotten and they become the tyrants rather than the custodians of nature, sooner or later the latter will rebel."
I don't see how this refers to genetic engineering...