Can Catholics believe in a literal six-day creation?

[TruthSeekerRob]

Is there room in the Catholic Church for a Christian that believes wholeheartedly in a literal 24-hour 6-day creation? I’ve only met with snide remarks and that look in the eye of Catholics that says, “You’re nuts for believing in such fairytales.”

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

To date, a Catholic is free to consider all of the possibilities that surround the amount of time surrounding creation, which include both the possibility of a literal six 24-hour days and the possibility that the six days are symbolic of a much longer time period. To my knowledge, so far the Church has not given an authoritative interpretation of the six days in the first two chapters of Genesis, although the Church has been open in recent years to symbolic interpretations:

God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine “work,” concluded by the “rest” of the seventh day. On the subject of creation, the sacred text teaches the truths revealed by God for our salvation, permitting us to “recognize the inner nature, the value and the ordering of the whole of creation to the praise of God” ([CCC 337 (Catechism of the Catholic Church - Paragraph # 337))

**Recommended reading:
**

• ** Adam, Eve, and Evolution**
• ** Creation and Genesis**
• ** Hexaemeron** - the 6 days of Creation
• Creationism
• Creation
• ** The Six Days of Creation** by Jimmy Akin
• [Testimony of Rocky Halls (http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0307fea2.asp) by Karl Keating
• [Humani Generis (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/p.../hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html) by Pope Pius XII