A leaked State Department cable shows that the U.S. Embassy to the
Holy See is reading Catholic statements on the environment through the
lens of population control policy.
The cable, released Dec. 19, is one of hundreds of thousands of
unauthenticated U.S. State Department documents being released through
the WikiLeaks website.
The Nov. 11, 2009 cable, titled “Pope Turns up the Heat on
Environmental Protection,” was apparently signed by U.S. Ambassador to
the Holy See Miguel H. Diaz.
It explained that Pope Benedict XVI's proposal to curb environmental
degradation is to reject “excessive materialism and consumerism.”
“In the Vatican's view,” the cable's author wrote, “unsustainable
lifestyles in developed countries--and not population growth
worldwide--is to blame for global warming. Vatican officials claim that
the planet has the capacity to feed and sustain its expanding
population, provided resources are properly distributed and waste
controlled.”
The cable noted Vatican officials' past claims that the world's most
populous countries were not the ones that released the most greenhouse
gas.
“As China and India industrialize and release more greenhouse gases,
however, the Vatican may find it more difficult to blame climate change
on lifestyles only. Even as this happens, however, the Vatican will
continue to oppose aggressive population control measures to fight
hunger or global warming.”
The U.S. government has long advocated population control
internationally. While recent justifications of population control
policy focus on environmental impact, in the 1970s the U.S. National
Security Council's National Security Study Memorandum 200 backed
population control for different reasons.
That memorandum advocated population control to prevent developing
nations from becoming politically powerful, to protect U.S. access to
other countries' natural resources, and to limit the number of young
people who are more likely to challenge existing social and political
norms and cause instability.
The rest of the Nov. 11, 2009 cable focused on the Vatican's view of genetically modified organisms.
While the Vatican's message about caring for the environment is “loud
and clear,” its message on biotechnologies is “still low-profile” and
only “quietly supportive,” the Vatican embassy cable commented.
It recounted Pope Benedict XVI's Nov. 16, 2009 remarks at the World
Food Security Summit in Rome. There, the pontiff called for changes in
lifestyle and habits of consumption, linking development to the use of
“agricultural technologies.”
The cable author interpreted the last phrase to include
biotechnologies, calling the remarks a “small but significant step”
towards more vocal Vatican support for the technologies.
On Nov. 11, 2009 the Vatican embassy's political officer had spoken
with Msgr. James Reinert, described as the “point person” on
biotechnology and food security for the Pontifical Council of Justice
and Peace.
Msgr. Reinert said that genetically modified crops have a role in
increasing agricultural production. However, he reportedly added the
Vatican cannot force all bishops to endorse biotechnology, especially if
they oppose it due to concerns about corporate profiteering.
The cable noted that some Catholic bishops have been skeptical about
the benefits of new biotechnologies. It also claimed that the Vatican's
own scientific academy has stated that there is no evidence genetically
modified organisms are harmful. Instead, they could play a role in
addressing food problems.
This appears to be a reference to a May 2009 study week organized by
the Pontifical Academy for the Sciences. However, Vatican spokesman Fr.
Federico Lombardi recently emphasized that only seven of the 40 scholars
participating in the study week were pontifical academicians. He said
the scholars' statement must not be considered a statement of the
pontifical academy because “the academy, as such, has never been
consulted about it.”
The Vatican Embassy's 2009 cable said it would “continue to lobby the
Vatican” to speak in favor of genetically modified organisms in the
hope that this would encourage individual church leaders elsewhere to
“reconsider their critical views.”
In a Dec. 3 e-mail response to CNA, the U.S. Vatican Embassy
condemned the disclosure of the cables and said it cannot speak to the
authenticity of any of the documents provided to the press.
Fr. Lombardi has stressed that the cables reflect the perceptions and
opinions of their authors and cannot be considered as expressions of
the Holy See.
SIC: CNA/INTL