The encyclical letter Laudato Si is available here on the Vatican website. Back to plants and animals, a brief paragraph of three sentences and a quote from a saint:
132. This, then, is the correct framework for any reflection concerning human intervention on plants and animals, which at present includes genetic manipulation by biotechnology for the sake of exploiting the potential present in material reality. The respect owed by faith to reason calls for close attention to what the biological sciences, through research uninfluenced by economic interests, can teach us about biological structures, their possibilities and their mutations. Any legitimate intervention will act on nature only in order “to favor its development in its own line, that of creation, as intended by God”.[John Paul II, Address to the 35th General Assembly of the World Medical Association (29 October 1983), 6: AAS 76 (1984), 394.]
Do we pay attention to the discoveries of science and how these impact our relationship to the universe? Or do we hold faith as the ultimate beginning, not just the end, and alter our interpretation of the world to fit what we once thought we knew?
Catholic Sensibility 