Maybe I’m just a cave man - or descended from them - but I don’t see anything in the quote above that indicates that the RC church is backing away from accepting evolution as the natural mechanism by which God created all the biodiversity in the world.
That does not mean that evolution didn’t happen; it means that it worked according to an ultimate grand design.
As has been pointed out already, science doesn’t have to ‘explain away’ the appearance of design. Science has come up with an acceptable theory of the origins of species, and it is not in science’s purview to say whether this was only random chance or divine influence.
I think proclaiming a new Dark Age for the Catholic Churh is wildly (and irresponsibly) off base. I don’t really see a change in their doctrine, nor do I have a problem reconciling it with modern scientific theory (i.e., evolution).
First, what is “BPOE?”
Second, there’s always the church my dad’s cousin started: Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church. Explanation-he’s a priest who was excommunicated because he wouldn’t shut up or retract his approval for married and/or women clergy. So he started his own church.
Bite me in Latin? I THINK it’s “endo ego.” Don’t ask me how I know this.
That raises an interesting thought. If the Pope does go all the way and denounces evolution, then he is denouncing his own church (which teaches evolution in their schools) and he also denounces previous Popes who were OK with it. So then if it happens, which Pope’s words are the “infallible” ones? Not that it matters, the only time anything is “completely infallible with crunchy goodness and extra sparklies” is when it is spoken ex cathdera. If one pope says a thing, and a following pope says the other, one of them has to be false. Or, we can just think for ourselves and sidestep all the rigamarole.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, everyone take a breath. This is not a change, this is a clarification. Everyone repeat after me: The Roman Catholic Church is not repudiating evolution.. They are only re-asserting that evolution is a product of divine design and not of random chance. There is nothing anti-scientific or luddite about that.
Regardless of whether the Church changes its policy (which I doubt it will), the cardinal who wrote that article is a moron. It’s fine to say that you believe that God is behind things as a matter of faith, but it’s just a flat out lie (or an expression of sheer ignorance) to say that the universe can’t exist without ID (all the evidence suggests that it does) or that there’s any evidence for it, much less “overwhelming” evidence, and it’s also completely dishonest and even malicious to say that science is trying to “avoid” this non-existence evidence.
Stating a tenet of faith is one thing, stating it as fact, and then trying to smear honest scientists as being somehow unscrupulous or to villify scientific inquiry is beyond the pale.
B.P.O.E “Best People on Earth”. It’s an Elks thing that was universally recognized years ago. You can Google it for reference.
Apparently the icon is too old to use anymore. Doesn’t work if people don’t get it. Not that I wasn’t already feeling old.
I’m also of the opinion that this isn’t going to happen in even the slightest instance except to acknowledge that God might have had something to do with getting the ball rolling (by creating the universe). This would not be a departure from what I was taught.
This is my assumption to. Although honestly, I don’t know all the ins and outs of Roman Catholicism. I was baptised a Roman Catholic, but lapsed in the faith a quarter century ago. However, a few months ago when talking to a devout Catholic this would be enough to go to the local RCC and speak with a priest. From what I was told, unless I was ever formally excommunicated (I wasn’t), the church would still recognize me as a member. As such, I could discuss my belief in evolution with the local priest. One of these days I perhaps should. I’ve yet to see at the local RCC on the sign outside “sinners, go away!”
Is this a RCC belief? I always thought this wasn’t a major RCC point. “Jesus died for our sins, and was the Son of God” was. But evolution was just a minor detail.
Even IF the RCC were in the mood to repudiate evolutionary theory, and I agree the evidence is hardly conclusive … indicative, at best … if the Church moved at the same pace as they do on getting sane about birth control and the position of women in the Church, we’re not in any great danger of seeing changes for at least a couple hundred years.
What is considered “evidence” in one field may not be considered evidence in another. Scientific evidence may not be admissible in court, and what is admissible in court may have no scientific basis. The same does for faith and science. Someone on this board once told a story in which a priest held up a baby and said " This is proof that God loves us- he sends us babies". Wouldn’t be considered proof by a scientist at all- but it is by at least some standards of faith. It is just as wrong to hold faith to the standards of science as it is to hold science to the standards of faith.They are almost mutually exclusive- if I believe something because scientific evidence has persuaded me that it is true, there is no faith involved in my belief, and if I believe something as a matter of faith, it is going to take more than a lack of scientific evidence to change my belief.
No matter the merits (or lack thereof) of this particular cleric’s argument, an assertion that Neo-Darwinian Evolution (or the current Standard Model of Cosmology (aka inflationary Big Bang), or any other scientific theory) must not be understood to contradict a theistic philosphy of teleology seems a rather blindingly obvious logical extension of a theistic religious framework of belief. If it were not stated explicitly, I would have assumed inevitably that the Catholic Church’s only possible official position on evolution is of the “guided” sort, which is to say it’s some variant of “Intelligent Design”. I imagine honest and astute Catholic theologians will scoff at the sort of tripe produced by the likes of Behe and Dembski, whilst still asserting that the appearance of absense of design, albeit mysterious, is simply no reason to lose faith in Christ or God’s ultimate and purposeful role in every aspect of the Cosmos. There are enough other confounding mysteries in Christian faith, after all; and there’s nothing especially troublesome about this one, I suppose, unless some members of the flock get as distracted by it as their ancestral brethren did when contemplating some of the other mysteries that have been hashed out in centuries past.
That was my impression. You don’t see Roman Catholics in the US getting into a big huff over the fact that evolution is taught in public schools. Although this may have something to do with Roman Catholics not wanting the Protestant majority in the US calling the shots over public school curricula. The RCC attitude, at least in the US, seems to be that if I have any questions about God and the creation of the universe, I should haul my ass to the local RCC and speak with a priest. They don’t care that much about what scientists or the government says. God works in mysterious ways, and could have possibly created a universe where evolution occurs. What is important is following the Ten Commandments, and the teachings of Jesus. Theories of evolution are just “small stuff”, and I’d miss the point of the faith if I worried a lot about them.
The imbecile quoted in the OP specicifically said that evidence for “purpose and design” is found in “modern science.” That is an objectively false statement. It’s a lie, not a difference of opinion. There is not, and never has been, a single shred of scientific evidence for ID whatsoever. The cardinal also goes on to say that scientific theories which do not acknowledge ID are “avoiding” scientific evidence for ID (they are not…there IS no such evidence) and that such theories are “not scientific.” That’s another statement which has nothing to do with a different kind of “evidence,” it’s simply an objective falsehood and a malicious one at that.
Stating a tenet of faith is one thing. Villifying science and making false statements about it is another.
Darwin wasn’t an atheist. He just offered a theory of how god’s creation worked. God could have created a universe where evolution was part of His “Intelligent Design”.