High-Tech Food for the Poor

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 17 — For some months, officials in the African nation of Zambia have been in a standoff with the United States over food.

Even as famine threatens millions in that poor nation — reducing some people to eating grass — its leaders have refused U.S. food donations because they contain genetically modified crops such as corn, which are eaten throughout the United States by consumers but totally banned in the European Union.

Former Holy See representative to the United Nations Archbishop Renato Martino called for Zambia to accept the donations, according to the AP.

“I lived 16 years in America and I ate what came from the market,” he told reporters at a press conference. “So far I have had no ill effects.”

Pointing to the plight of Zambians, Archbishop Martino said he “wouldn't make such a big deal” about the food's origin, noting that “when you're hungry, you eat everything.”

He recalled that during World War II he ate bread that had marble powder mixed into it to stretch the scant rations.

“We ate it because that's what we had,” he explained, calling the duel between Zambian and American officials more “political than scientific.”

Love Has No Limits

VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Dec. 14 — Pope John Paul II addressed attendees at the Federation of Christian Organizations for International Volunteer Service, telling them that Christians are called to bear witness to the “provident compassion of our heavenly Father.”

He explained that “love for our neighbor, which knows no bounds, needs to be nourished in the hearth of divine charity. This means dedicating much time to prayer, listening attentively and constantly to the Word of God and above all living an existence centered on the mystery of the Eucharist.”

“The secret to the efficacy of all your projects,” he reminded the volunteers, “is therefore constant reference to Christ.”

Peace Is a Most Precious Good

FIDES NEWS, Dec. 16 — Addressing seven new ambassadors to the Holy See, Pope John Paul II emphasized respect for human life and the search for world peace.

He bemoaned today's “eclipse of the sense of God,” which has “resulted in an eclipse of the sense of the transcendence of man and of the intrinsic dignity of human life.”

The Holy Father warned that “caught within the narrow confines of a materialistic outlook on reality, which easily leads to absorption with self and a utilitarian approach to living, people sometimes fail to recognize the nature of life as a gift, a gift which finds its genuine meaning and purpose in openness to the truth of its origin in God and in the exercise of wholehearted solidarity with other human beings.”