Tuesday, November 08, 2005 -
FreeMarketNews.ComIt may not make the "creationist" crowd very happy, but their attacks on evolution might have to stop. According to an article from the Australian news.com website, the Vatican has issued a statement about the Darwinian theory of evolution and its relationship to Biblical scripture.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, is quoted as saying the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution are "perfectly compatible" if the Bible is read correctly. It was a direct attack on the creationist campaigners in America.
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," Poupard allegedly said at a Vatican press conference, declaring that the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator." His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the "intelligent design" view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail. - ST
Evolution in the bible, says VaticanBy Martin Penner
07-11-2005
From: The Australian
THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.
His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".
This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".
His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the "intelligent design" view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail.
Boston Globe - A cardinal asks faithful not to discount science
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press | November 4, 2005
VATICAN CITY -- A Vatican cardinal said yesterday that the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, and warned that religion risks turning into ''fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, a Frenchman who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a project to help end the ''mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has been an issue for the Roman Catholic Church, and that is part of the evolution debate in the United States.
The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from ''tragic mutual incomprehension."
Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus's discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed the Earth at the center of the universe.
''The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines," Poupard said.
But he said that science, too, should listen to religion. ''We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said. ''But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason, and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said.
''The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer," he added, ''just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice."
Poupard and others were asked about the religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and ''intelligent design." Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life. The Rev. Monsignor Gianfranco Basti of the Vatican project Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, affirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was ''more than just a hypothesis."
''Evolution is more than a hypothesis," Basti said, ''because there is proof."
BeliefNet: Pope Echoes Arguments of Intelligent Design Advocates
By Stacy Meichtry and Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service
Vatican City , Nov. 9 - Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed creation as the driving force of the universe Wednesday, describing the natural world as an "intelligent project" and rejecting scientific thought that regards the history of the universe as random and directionless.
The pope's remarks on evolution came one day after the Kansas Board of Education voted 6-4 to adopt new standards that cast doubt on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, though it was unclear whether the two developments were related. Still, the timing was enough to make some scientists wonder whether the pope was attempting to move the church closer to advocates of "intelligent design," who contend that nature is so complex that it must have been influenced by divine guidance.
"How many people are there today who, fooled by atheism, think and try to demonstrate that it would be scientific to think that everything is without direction and order?" Benedict said during his weekly Wednesday audience.
Benedict's comments departed from prepared remarks that quoted St. Basil the Great, a fourth century churchman who warned of people "fooled by the atheism they carry inside them." In comments that echo arguments made by intelligent design advocates, the pope described the world as a product of "creative reason, the reason that has created everything, that has created this intelligent project."
The pope's remarks came at the same time the Vatican is hosting an international conference that aims to promote understanding between the worlds of religion and science. The conference is part of an ongoing Vatican project inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that "tragic mutual incomprehension" resulted in the church's condemnation of Galileo, the 17th century astronomer who challenged church teaching on the nature of the universe.
Benedict's remarks will surely be parsed for meaning by both advocates and critics of intelligent design theory, especially after a debate erupted last summer when a prominent cardinal seemed to move the church away from its traditional tolerance of evolution. In a high-profile op-ed piece in The New York Times, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna said "evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense ... is not true" and rebuffed as "rather vague and unimportant" remarks by John Paul II in 1996 that described evolution as "more than a hypothesis."
Schonborn's article unleashed a torrent of criticism from scientists who feared that the Catholic hierarchy was embracing a more fundamentalist view of creation, or at least one that viewed evolution with heavy doses of skepticism. One of those scientists, Lawrence Krause of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, wrote to the pope in July seeking clarification. Krause said Wednesday that Benedict's use of the phrase "intelligent product" was "disconcerting."
"I'm concerned that ... the impression that will be obtained by many people, and that will be used in this public relations campaign, is that `See, science is atheistic and has to be changed,"' Krause said in an interview. Krause, who is Catholic, said the pope's remarks Wednesday were not "the clarification that I wanted," but nonetheless held out the hope that "behind these remarks the pope is saying the right thing."
"Even if you believe there was divine intelligence ... that isn't inconsistent with what we know happened in science, which is evolution," Krause said.
Others inside the church are also concerned. Last week, Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council on Culture, warned against the "dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism." Asked about Schonborn's comments, Poupard said he believed God created the world, but added, "It's important for the faithful to know how science views things to understand better."
Bruce Chapman, president of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, who worked to develop Schonborn's July 7 op-ed and is a major proponent of intelligent design, said it appears the pope was merely trying to "correct the misstatements" about church teaching on evolution. "The traditional view of the church never contradicted micro evolution, which is change over time, but it also never embraced Darwinian evolution, which is macro evolution," Chapman said