Am I misunderstanding this quotation?

[Little_Tiger]

Hello! Am I misunderstanding this quotation from His Holiness Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis, “Some…audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution”? Does the Holy Father mean to say that the belief in continuous biological evolution is erroneous? Does he mean to only permit Catholics to believe that evolution occurred in the past, but does not still occur?
Thank you, may God bless you!

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

1. If anyone examines the state of affairs outside the Christian fold, he will easily discover the principle trends that not a few learned men are following. Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all things, and audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution. Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.

It is a condemnation of the idea that there are no absolutes. These theories use the scientific theories of evolution to propose that there is no objective morality (e.g. relativism) or that even God evolves (e.g. Progressivism).

The next section of the Encyclical explains this:

1. Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.