Or a typical Jesuit.
Regarding the OP, another vote for ill-/misinformed. Catholicism has not held that science and theology are necessarily at loggerheads for decades, if not centuries (Galileo vs the Inquisition notwithstanding).
Thank you for your responses, everyone. Huh. Well, now I’m wondering if it’s an Indian thing. Somehow I doubt we have any Indian Catholic Dopers to ask.
I’m sure it’s just a less-educated thing, Catholicism is a world-wide religion and there is huge variation on what Catholics will say that they do and do not believe. I’d bet you could find Catholics in the US who believe that Adam and Eve really were the first man and woman, in fact I bet I could find some today in Chicago if I just kept asking.
What’s more surprising that that they made a point of asking you about evolution, IME the evolution conflict in the US has nothing to do with Catholics, it’s more a issue taken up by fundamentalist Christians who are decidedly not Catholic. I’m surprised it was on the radar of some Catholic girls in India, if they brought it up then that suggests it’s a debate they’ve been following. Not knowing all the details, I would assume this was mostly them being teenagers who were recently discussing religion with someone else who didn’t really know what they were talking about.
Dunno, but I have the distinct impression that the Catholic Church in Africa at least practically espouses a much more biblically literal dogma than the “official” roman pronouncements suggests.
This. Just as there are a lot of Americans who don’t really get the First Amendment, separation of powers, other basics of American civics, there are a lot of Catholics who have only a very vague idea of what the church says about anything.
My parents were taught evolution in school. That was a combo of public schools and several different nuns for her (born 1940) and of the Escolapios and Jesuits for him (born 1938; sorry, I don’t know what are the Escolapios called in English but it’s a male religious order dedicated to teaching and focusing mostly on primary school).
By the time evolution came up in my school (Company of Mary 6th grade and later Jesuits 9th grade), I’d already known about it for yoinks. The explanations didn’t focus so much on “is this true” as on “how does it work, what is known and what are the questions being researched now”. It was part of the same lessons as genetics; I didn’t get it again in 12th grade because I hadn’t chosen biochemistry as one of my optionals.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. They weren’t teenagers, they were in their mid-20s, old enough that they were sighing about not being married yet because it meant that they couldn’t move out of their parents’ houses and be a little independent.
The first “official rules” for Catholics and evolution come from Humani Generi (1950).
The classic summary is
- The human body can be the result of changes in pre-existing living creatures.
- The soul is not the result of evolution.
- There is no theological obligation to accept evolution.
- All humans descend from Adam and Eve (the first humans)
John Paul II said (from Wikipedia):
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points…Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies – which was neither planned nor sought – constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.
“Theories of evolution which, because of the philosophies which inspire them, regard the spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.”
I’m not Catholic, but I did go to a Catholic high school, and was taught biology, and a hefty dose of evolution and evolutionary theory from an ordained Jesuit priest.
I’d think that if that doesn’t clarify the Catholic position on evolution, then very little else will.
I was aware of this, and I think I made that clear in the OP. My question wasn’t so much the official take on theology, but more about what ordinary people believe.
It sounds like there is a wide range of beliefs, depending on people’s level of education.
My mother is a very devout Catholic. Actually calls herself a fundamentalist Catholic. She use to be a nurse (LVN). She believes in creationism.
I’m a Catholic too, but not as devout and I don’t have any medical training. I use to believe in creationism but now believe in evolution. Actually, I guess my belief is closer to intelligent design in that I believe that God started it and probably guided it, but unlike the intelligent design crowd I know that my belief is a mix of religion and science. Or, in other words, I know that my belief that God is responsible is religious and not scientific.
Catholic and Catholic-educated for the first thirteen years of my education (five of those years by Jesuits, eight by Gray Nuns of the Sacred Heart). I was taught evolution (at an age-appropriate level) all the way through my education.
As to what ordinary people believe, the vast majority of Catholics I know (lay or otherwise) have no issues with the theory of evolution. And that’s a lot of Catholics, having grown up in a nearly purely Catholic environment, in a strongly Catholic family.
I’ve run into a very small number of Catholics who do. Most of them were simply ignorant. One or two are wilfully ignorant and really should know better.
Of the Catholics I’ve encountered who do have a problem with the theory of evolution, not a one of them was educated by Jesuits. Those of you who mentioned above that you went to Jesuit schools will understand.
Of course it’s true that there’s a range of beliefs, depending on the level of education of the believer. But what the Church actually teaches is part of the reality, too. It’s an imperfect world, and the Church is an imperfect teacher, and not everything reaches every Catholic. Or even every Catholic priest, or nun, or teacher.
I was educated in Catholic schools more than 40 years ago, and we were taught, quite matter of factly, about evolution. I can’t remember even a single parent having a problem with it.
The whole Galileo thing branded the Roman Catholics as anti-science. But to be fair, that happened 400 years ago. Even in the Catholic church, four centuries is long enough to see some change.
I had a Catholic education and we were taught evolution. In fact, religion wasn’t really discussed or seem to directly influence any of our classes other than religion class itself (except occassionally art and music, which we would use to prep stuff for mass).
My experience, as well. I don’t even recall a student/nun/priest making any comments about “alternative” theories, even as an aside or joke. Certainly not saying that there aren’t Catholics out there that believe in intelligent design just that out of the hundreds I’ve met over my lifetime, I’ve never met one that does.
My daughter goes to Catholic school here in San Antonio and they touched on evolution a bit during her science studies (she’s in the second grade).
Evidently people don’t talk about Teilhard de Chardin much anymore. Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and believer in evolution well before Humani generis (which seems to have censured him, but I gather not because of evolution)
It disturbs me that we agree so much, Oak, it really does.
I’ll add Catholic college so at least we’re distinct that way. Plus I’m so pretty.
In Ireland we had religion classes. In one school the religion teacher was a actual priest. If you had a note from a parent you could be excused from the class. We had a Muslim in the class whose parents were very happy for him to attend after speaking to the priest.
In every school I was in (I attended 3 as a teen) evolution was taught in science class without any clarification about other ‘beliefs’.
In religion we read the bible(rarely), talked it out and did a lot of comparative religion stuff like learning a bit about Judaism, Islam, Buddhism etc. Creationism was mentioned in religion class but only a slightly mocking way e.g. “there are some misguided people who believe the creation myth in the Bible is fact”