scale food production systems which feed the greater part of the world’s peoples, using a modest
amount of land and producing less waste, be it in small agricultural parcels, in orchards and gardens,
hunting and wild harvesting or local fishing. Economies of scale, especially in the agricultural sector,
end up forcing smallholders to sell their land or to abandon their traditional crops. Their attempts to
move to other, more diversified, means of production prove fruitless because of the difficulty of
linkage with regional and global markets, or because the infrastructure for sales and transport is geared
to larger businesses. Civil authorities have the right and duty to adopt clear and firm measures in
support of small producers and differentiated production. To ensure economic freedom fromwhich all
can effectivelybenefit, restraints occasionallyhave tobe imposed on thosepossessing greater resources
and financial power. To claim economic freedomwhile real
conditions bar many people from actual
access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practise a doublespeak
which brings politics into disrepute. Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and
improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates,
especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.
Newbiological technologies
130. In the philosophical and theological vision of the human being and of creation which I have
presented, it is clear that the human person, endowed with reason and knowledge, is not an external
factor to be excluded. While human intervention on plants and animals is permissible when it pertains
to the necessities of human life, the
Catechism of the CatholicChurch
teaches that experimentation on
animals ismorally acceptable only “if it remainswithin reasonable limits [and] contributes to caring for
or saving human lives”.
106
The
Catechism
firmly states that human power has limits and that “it is
contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly”.
107
All such use and
experimentation “requires a religious respect for the integrityof creation”.
108
131. Here I would recall the balanced position of Saint John Paul II, who stressed the benefits of
scientific and technological progress as evidence of “the nobility of the human vocation to participate
responsibly in God’s creative action”, while also noting that “we cannot interfere in one area of the
106
Catechismof theCatholicChurch
, 2417.
107
Ibid., 2418.
108
Ibid., 2415.
