Went to Catholic elementary, middle and high schools. Learned evolution in science class and textual crit of the Bible in religion classes in high school. The Church is pretty much on board with the more rational Biblical compilation theories as opposed to the fundamentalist “Moses wrote the Pentateuch!” loony-tuneness.
I went to Catholic school for 13 years (K-12th grade, beginning in about 1985), and was taught evolution in science classes.
In religion classes, I remember being taught that the story of Creation was a metaphor - basically (based on what I remember from middle school!), “7 days” did not literally mean 7 days, but could have been any length of time. Most biblical measures of time were metaphorical, either meaning “an unknown length of time”, or in the case of the extreme ages of some biblical figures, “very, very old”.
Where in India were these girls from? For example, if they were from Goa, then their theology is probably Portuguese-influenced. If they’re Keralites, then they probably belong to the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church or Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. These are officially Eastern Rite Catholics now, but were separated from the RCC for centuries. I don’t know what influence that would have on their theology, and the concept of evolution is comparatively not very old.
I’ve met a few Catholics who didn’t believe in evolution, including the religion teacher at my high school in my first two years (someone else took over after that*). But that was just individual belief - what we were taught was good science, and non-literal interpretation of the Bible.
- It was, in fact, the history teacher, for my class. So, we got a rather different look at it - a lot of discussion of the historical context of the Church, as well as Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism…with slight touching on Hinduism, Buddhism, and other unrelated-to-Christianity religions. (Which was kind of a bummer, actually…it was SUPPOSED to be a world religion course, but we primarily got the history of Christianity, instead. Which was interesting, but not what we were supposed to get (and what the other class got). But I was the kind who’d read their textbooks for fun, so I got it anyway!)
One of them was from Goa, but her family had moved to Mumbai several years previously. The other had grown up in Mumbai. I’m not sure of the details. I think I would have remembered if they were Keralan, though, as one of my classmates is originally from Kerala and is Syro-Malabar Catholic (a group I didn’t know existed until I met her).
Much appreciated!
Catholic education here. Evolution was taught as fact.