An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.
The cardinal, Christoph Sch
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[…] Several of you have emailed that the Catholic church has always been ‘comfortable,’ if you will, with evolution. I do not disagree, but with the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI, there were some rumblings that this might change: […]
Demdude
I did Catholic School up through High School. It was in the 60’s and early 70’s. It was so right wing that we were taught all communists lived for, was to torture and convert Catholic Children. If fact, they said they liked to cut the ears off of the children for fun (my sister still sleeps with her head convered).
Even these wackos taught us that Evolution was not incompatible with Catholic Teachings.
What kind of loons are in charge these days? I don’t how any person capable of thinking logically could still stay associated with the church.
Mike Jones
Sigh. I came to the Church as an adult – was actually raised as a Southern Baptist. I’ve had a number of disagreements with the Church over the years, but I always consoled myself by thinking, “At least they’re not Creationist nutters.” Now I’m feeling more and more that they’re trying to drive me away.
Toren
Too bad they can’t learn from the past. Here’s Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430) in his work “The Literal Meaning of Genesis” (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim) providing excellent advice for all Christians who are faced with the task of interpreting Scripture in the light of scientific knowledge. This translation is by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” [1 Timothy 1.7]
CaseyL
It’s part of the same retreat from cognitive objectivity back to medievalist thinking, where the universe (and everything in it) is a representation of divinity, rather than a neutral, autonomous physicality.
The only truth is God’s; the only proper study of the world is study that seeks to reveal God’s Will. All else is not only false, but a trick to test the faithful. (In fact, fundamentalists say exactly that about the paleo fossil record: that it’s a trick played by God to test people.)
The Catholic Church has been moving backwards for a while now. The Opus Dei is rising in influence; many of the top leaders (including, I think, the new Pope) regret Vatican II. JPII was very conservative, theologically, but so visible a humanitarian most people didn’t notice that, behind the scenes, organizations like the Opus Dei were gaining power. It’s significant that the new Pope was in charge of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith before his elevation – that office used to be known as the Inquisition.
It isn’t just the Catholic Church, of course. Protestant evangelicals are also pushing for a greater role in politics, science, science education, public policy – and they’re succeeding.
And it’s not just Christians, of course. As you may have noticed, Islamic fundamentalism has also been in the headlines of late.
I honestly don’t know what set it off. It might be leftover Millennialism, people who think Jesus was going to come back in 2000, should have back back in 2000, and the only reason he didn’t come back in 2000 was because humanity was “not yet worthy.” Or it could be that Jesus won’t come back until the rise of the Anti-Christ and the beginning of Armageddon – so the psychology of the fundamentalists is to seek signs of those things, and possibly encourage them.
*If* one was a fundamentalist, and *if* one was expecting/hoping for some sign that the turn of the Millenium was in fact the signal for the Second Coming… then the attacks on 9/11 fit very, very neatly into an apocalyptic model. Especially if the national leadership does the same thing, by casting the “WoT’ as a clash of civilizations, a World War, a Manichean struggle. etc.
These are scary signs of scary times to come. Western humanity does seem, every few hundred years, to want to pull the blankets up over its collective head and wait for God to end everything.
I think it’ll take 20-40 years for this latest spasm of theological nihilism to run its course, Christian and Muslim alike. There will be more wars, more attacks on free inquiry, more pressure to return to a conformist, Biblically-run society. Secularity will be marginalized, and demonized.
I think, when the dust settles, China will be the world’s dominant power. It’s moving in that direction already, and the West isn’t doing anything to counteract it.
srv
And people thought Sullivan was over-reacting. He didn’t miss the memo. You can’t be a literalist and not believe in Genesis. Faith isn’t about thinking or pondering anymore, you just have to have IT. And you have to have the right faith. There’s a litmus test now.
Limbo isn’t in the Catholic doctrine anymore.
Opus Dei is now in the middle of rolling back all those namby-pamby thoughts we Catholics got in the last generation. They aren’t, and never have been, concerned with the Anglo US Church. We are dead to them. They will build a more “faithful” (albeit smaller) church here, and focus on winning the hearts (and minds) of the immigrant Hispanic growth. Other sects having been making a concerted play for Hispanics in the last 20 years, while the Catholic church frittered away. No longer.
At the deeper psycho-babble layer, this is just like everything else. Most people are unable to cope with things that don’t follow the doctrine of their traditional institutions. This leads to questions. Questions are threats, so better not to allow them in the first place.
The gist is, institutions like these aren’t strong enough to really stand on their own through the generations. They must always be under assault, be assaulting something, or be protected by government.
srv
I don’t intend in the above statement to imply all religions can’t stand on their own. The thought is along the lines “how long could Mr. Dobson thrive in his paradise?”
JonBuck
They won’t stop at evolution. As they gain power, you can count on attacks on any scientific discipline.
srv
CaseyL, agreed. Our best long-term hope here is that the fundamentalists get the opportunity to go ape over in China and leave us to progress.
RSA
Or computer science? COBOL, PASCAL, Assembly Language, and C++ are all ok, but the church has a fit over ADA?
Sorry, C++ is beyond question a tool of the devil.
BrianOfAtlanta
Just a minute, here (I can’t believe I’m going to defend a Catholic Cardinal). Did the Cardinal say that evolution was wrong? Not that I could tell. He specifically said that common ancestry, changes over time, may be true. That’s what evolution is. His problem is with neo-Darwinism, which goes outside the realm of science to state that those changes we have observed over time are due to nothing but “pure chance and necessity” (to quote the Cardinal).
Where the Cardinal errs is in equating mainstream evolutionary biologists with neo-Darwinists. However, any scientist who adamantly states that the root causes of evolutionary change are known, has just dropped the mantle of science and put on the mantle of faith. A true scientist will tell you that evolutionary changes appear to result from changes in environmental stresses. He/she may have a good idea of what those stresses were, and maybe even what caused them. However, at some point down the chain of cause and effect, there will come a point where the evidence will run out. At that point the scientist stops and says “I don’t know what made that happen.” A neo-Darwinist won’t stop there, though, and neither will a Creationist. Both “know” what occurred (or didn’t occur, as the case may be). However, both the neo-Darwinist and the Creationist abandon their scientific credentials, however briefly, when they take that step to professing ultimate knowledge.
BrianOfAtlanta
Just a minute, here (I can’t believe I’m going to defend a Catholic Cardinal). Did the Cardinal say that evolution was wrong? Not that I could tell. He specifically said that common ancestry, changes over time, may be true. That’s what evolution is. His problem is with neo-Darwinism, which goes outside the realm of science to state that those changes we have observed over time are due to nothing but “pure chance and necessity” (to quote the Cardinal).
Where the Cardinal errs is in equating mainstream evolutionary biologists with neo-Darwinists. However, any scientist who adamantly states that the root causes of evolutionary change are known, has just dropped the mantle of science and put on the mantle of faith. A true scientist will tell you that evolutionary changes appear to result from changes in environmental stresses. He/she may have a good idea of what those stresses were, and maybe even what caused them. However, at some point down the chain of cause and effect, there will come a point where the evidence will run out. At that point the scientist stops and says “I don’t know what made that happen.” A neo-Darwinist won’t stop there, though, and neither will a Creationist. Both “know” what occurred (or didn’t occur, as the case may be). However, both the neo-Darwinist and the Creationist abandon their scientific credentials, however briefly, when they take that step to professing ultimate knowledge.