The Pontifical Academy of Sciences will be holding a study week in May (2009) to hear what the scientific community has to say about GMO crops and food and whether they pose a threat to human health or not.

According to the Catholic News Service, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the academy's chancellor, suggested that arguments put forth by corporations in favor of genetic modification are not trustworthy because “they (corporations) are looking to make money."

The majority of the 41 speakers slated to attend the event support GMO crops including at least 4 who have ties to Monsanto.  To date, the Catholic Church has never taken an official position on genetically modified foods and Bishop Sanchez emphasized that what comes out of this gathering "will not be part of the church's magisterium."  However, this is not the first time the academy has discussed whether genetic modification should play a role in promoting food security. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican co-hosted a conference on modified foods in 2004 that many considered biased in favor of GMO technology.  At that time the academy showed its support for the potential of modified foods when it released a statement that praised the important contributions such foods could make in fighting hunger.  Now the Pontifical Academy academy members want to take a second look at the safety of genetic modification.

A front-page article in the May 1, 2009 edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano suggested that the Vatican's somewhat neutral position has meant that supporters and opposition of GMO foods have been "lobbying diligently to recruit the Vatican onto their respective sides.  Because of the sheer size and importance of the battle, the Vatican newspaper said that the issue of genetically modified organisms should be "faced without dogmatism and with common sense and responsibility, not with a barrage of mutual excommunications or, worse, lobbying disguised as a religious war."

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