The Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR) has responded (second letter below) to the attack made on it by Peter Raven, a Pontifical Academician and Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, in his address to the US-Vatican conference, "Feeding a Hungry World: The Moral Imperatives of Biotechnology."

In his speech Raven, it may be remebered, contrasted the rationality and scientific consensus found amongst supporters of the genetic engineering of food crops with the opposition which he characterised as "ideological", "unsupported", "harmful", "idiosyncratic", "scientifically unfounded", "fanciful", "self-serving", "murky", "outrageous", "politically or economically motivated", "obscene" and immoral.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4452

The least savoury aspect of Raven's address was his ludicrous attack on CIIR as allegedly a paid agent of the European Union or its individual member nations: "If allegations that the European Union or individual nations are funding pressure groups such as Greenpeace or 'The Catholic Institute for International Relations' (not affiliated with the Vatican, and perhaps not officially with the Roman Catholic Church) are true, they clearly indicate a misuse of taxpayer funds to support ideological causes that are unsupported and harmful to the development of Europe and its individual countries".

Note how even CIIR's name is put in inverted commas by Raven in his attempt to uncouple it from the rest of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, CIIR was not only founded by a Roman Catholic Cardinal but, as the letter below notes, has a Cardinal as its President.

As we noted at the time, what made Raven's attack on CIIR, as allegedly a paid mouthpiece of an undisclosed funder - in effect, a foreign power, so disgraceful was his own failure to disclose anywhere in his address that the Missouri Botanical Garden, of which he is director, has received literally millions of dollars in funding from Monsanto. The Garden's multimillion-dollar research centre is even called The Monsanto Center after its benefactor! And that's the tip of the iceberg.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=191
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Letters
The Tablet, 16 October 2004-11-20

The risk of GMOs

Technically, as Fr Roland Lesseps SJ notes (Letters, 9 October), the pro-GM rally in Rome on 24 September was presented by the US Embassy to the Vatican. Unfortunately, the programme clearly states that the conference is "in co-operation with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences".

US Ambassador Jim Nicolson's job is, among other things, to defend the unprovoked American attack on Iraq, and to allege benefits to hungry people from American petrochemicals, genetic modification, seed patenting and subsequent Third World dependence on American big business. Such dependence would, however, deprive Third World people of food security.

When gardening with the US Embassy, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences should use a long handle.
(Dr) Edward Echlin
Honorary Research Fellow in Theology
University College of Trinity and All Saints
Leeds
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Whilst Philippa Hitchen pointed out that the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University on the use of Genetically modified Organisms (GMOs) was heavily criticised, her report nonetheless replicated its rather one sided nature (The Church in the World, 2 October).

Was the inclusion of Dr Raven's unfounded and unjustified attack on CIIR meant to be tongue in cheek? Or perhaps it sought to demonstrate the paucity of the arguments by undermining the institution? CIIR is a well-respected organisation, known for high quality work in policy and practical development. We are an independent organisation, but with the Cardinal as our President, we are obviously affiliated to the Church.

GMOs are a controversial issue, hence it is only to be expected that we should be criticised. Our stance, however, is based on work with partners including peasant farmers who are struggling to feed themselves and their families in the face of unfair trade rules, competition in their markets against subsidised imports and who now face the behemoth of agri-technology which seeks to control seeds and patents life itself. Whilst the GM promoters talk about increased yield, this control and protection is the other side of the coin that is not so easily discussed. Access to seeds and food production is controlled and managed; a concept anathema to peasant farmers who save and share seeds. They would, under GM, be forced to buy new seeds every year and, in the case of "terminator" seeds, the chemicals to make them germinate.

Four main corporations control virtually all the world's production of GMO seeds, and many are concerned that they are looking for a new market. We need to recognise that if we do not act, we run the need of another campaign about unfair food rules in the future. We know that the solutions to poverty and hunger lie in political and economic structures and righting those injustices. Let's not make the same mistake with food.

Christine Allen
Executive Director
CIIR
London N1
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