The Pope Speaks Out On Evolution

Dang it you beat me to this one! Oh well, I guess back to your regularly scheduled martial arts post. :-)~BCP

I suppose one could view the statement as leaving room for intelligent design, or merely a divine ‘spark’ to get the ball rolling, and not merely the contingency of existence. I was just pleased mostly because the Pope’s view had been unclear and it had seemed he might be backtracking on evolution and reversing the Catholic Church’s endorsement of it as ‘more than a theory’. As long as the Catholic Church continues to embrace science, as it has fairly consistently in recent years, then we don’t need to worry about them leaving room for a creator, since they will hopefully be committed to doing that in a way that does not seek to undermine the foundations of science. Then again, being a Catholic nowadays doesn’t mean one necessarily accepts the Church’s teachings on this or that, and so it unfortunately remains true that many Catholics may still fall for young-earth creationism and other nonsense. In short, I was just glad to hear the Church reiterate from the top its support for evolution. Perhaps if I read the whole speech I’d feel differently – my Italian is not fluent, except for names of foods, unfortunately.