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Rhinocrisy
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08 November, 2005
Vatican evolution
In 1996 the Pope made a famous statement that was construed by many parties as endorsing the theory of evolution. Therein he acknowledged that evolution is "more than just a hypothesis". But he also included several caveats:
Well, now the Vatican has stepped up to unequivocally support the theory of evolution (and secular science more generally) and shut down any nagging doubts about where the church stands. Cardinal Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says:
Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter the spiritual soul is immediately created by God ("animal enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere inhet"; Encyclical Humani generic, AAS 42 [1950], p. 575).Philosophical naturalism, especially as it concerns the human mind, might be incompatible with the Christian understanding of the soul. But he concludes by saying this need not necessarily dismay us:
Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person.
Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition into the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again, of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator's plans.Earlier this year a cardinal wrote an op-ed downplaying this statement and expressing his support for "intelligent design" theory.
Well, now the Vatican has stepped up to unequivocally support the theory of evolution (and secular science more generally) and shut down any nagging doubts about where the church stands. Cardinal Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says:
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," the French prelate said at a Vatican press conference. The real message of the first chapter of Genesis was that "the Universe didn't make itself and had a creator".Of course I don't think this will have any impact on Americans. Willful ignorance seems to be a priority here.
This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard said. Precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. "Science and theology act in different fields, each in its own," he added.
Cardinal Poupard said it was important for Roman Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".
Comments
I will be interested to see where this turns up in our media. It is all over Slashdot and the blogs already. And it's starting to show up in US papers, including the Lone Star Times, the Free Market News Network, and the Nashville News-Sentinel. All are in very religious, Republican states. So we shall see.
The bad news in this story is that the Vatican evades my desire to see all religions reveal their irrelevance in order to more quickly be retired to the attic along with the wax cylinder phonographs and the ivory hair picks. Catholicism gives itself another few years, just like that.
Posted by hedgehog
The bad news in this story is that the Vatican evades my desire to see all religions reveal their irrelevance in order to more quickly be retired to the attic along with the wax cylinder phonographs and the ivory hair picks. Catholicism gives itself another few years, just like that.
Posted by hedgehog
In 1996 the Pope made a famous statement that was construed by many parties as endorsing the theory of evolution. Just to be clear, the speech of John Paul's cited was merely reendorsing a Magisterium of Pius XII; the church had recognized evolution for decades, and certainly prior to 1996 which I know from a) my 1991 middle school report on Roman Catholicism, for which I asked a priest at St. Isidore's about the subject and b) Geeky Chic's memories of being taught about Darwin's finches early in her Parochial education. The earlier, post-Benedict, noise this year was so very noisy b/c it would have been a shocking departure from what is already tradition.
The fact that it won't have much impact (and, previously, did not have much impact) is indication of an indication of the schizophrenia of the American Conservative Catholic, so obsessed with contraception, abortion and homophobia but so willing to ignore science, war, poverty, and the death penalty; it's also an indication of the tenuous marriage between the Evangelical "mainstream" and the RC Church in the first place. We have fewer Dorothy Days and too many Scalitos.
evades my desire to see all religions reveal their irrelevance in order to more quickly be retired to the attic along with the wax cylinder phonographs and the ivory hair picks.
yes, well, I think some of us have a little more living left to do. ;-)
Posted by Saheli
The fact that it won't have much impact (and, previously, did not have much impact) is indication of an indication of the schizophrenia of the American Conservative Catholic, so obsessed with contraception, abortion and homophobia but so willing to ignore science, war, poverty, and the death penalty; it's also an indication of the tenuous marriage between the Evangelical "mainstream" and the RC Church in the first place. We have fewer Dorothy Days and too many Scalitos.
evades my desire to see all religions reveal their irrelevance in order to more quickly be retired to the attic along with the wax cylinder phonographs and the ivory hair picks.
yes, well, I think some of us have a little more living left to do. ;-)
Posted by Saheli
