The Vatican has stunned opponents of genetically modified foods by
declaring they hold the answer to world starvation and malnutrition.
Until Sunday`s statement the Vatican had been neutral in the European
Union-US confrontation over GM food.

Archbishop Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace, said the Vatican was preparing an official report on
biotechnology, to be published next month, which would come down in
favour of genetic modification. The document will coincide with a debate
on GM by EU farm ministers.

Archbishop Martino said the Pope was greatly interested in new
technologies for food development as part of a policy of sustainable
agriculture. He noted that 24,000 people died every day from starvation.

Archbishop Martino, who until last year was the Vatican representative
at the UN, said he had lived for 16 years in the US "and I ate
everything that was offered to me, including genetically modified
products. They had no effect on my health. This controversy is more
political than scientific."

The Vatican study will argue that the future of humanity is at stake and
that there is no room for the ideological arguments advanced by
environmentalists.

One Vatican official said: "The Book of Genesis clearly establishes the
domination of man over nature. God has entrusted mankind to preserve
nature but also to use it."

Archbishop Martino said the Pope had been influenced by the growing
weight of advice from the Vatican`s scientific advisers. "The Pope
ardently desires to do something for the billions of people who go to
bed hungry every night," he said.

Archbishop Martino said freedom from hunger was one of the fundamental
rights of man. The Vatican`s stand was consistent with its belief in
"the right to life from the moment of conception to the moment of
natural death".

Vatican officials said many in the West had made up their minds about
genetic modification while ignoring the benefits to the world`s hungry.
Velasio De Paolis, a professor of canon law at the Pontifical Urban
University, said it was "easy to say no to GM food if your stomach is
full".

Scientific progress was part of the divine plan, he said. "The
introduction of new and more efficient technologies such as second and
third-generation GM foods, in harmony with sustainable development, is
not a threat but a benefit."

Carlo Bernardini, editor of Italy`s leading scientific magazine, Sapere,
said he hoped Italy, which holds the rotating EU presidency, would take
its lead from the Pope.

But Alfonso Scanio Pecoraro, head of the Italian Greens and a former
agriculture minister, said he was horrified by the Vatican`s
intervention. "The church is using its authority to support a scam by
the US multinationals," he said.

He suspected the administration of US President George W. Bush had put
pressure on the Holy See.

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