Official Catholic Church's position on Evolution & Creationism

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From all that I have read in all the sites/subsites/sub subsites listed in the "New Advent* website, ie, *Catholic Answers, Catholic Online, American **Catholic and Catholic News Agency *to name but a few, you will find what seems to be that THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and all the popes since Pius XII believe in evolution. They attempt to explain its not evolution but creationism that is a fact. YET, NO WHERE HAVE I FOUND ANY HONEST, FORTHRITE EFFORT BY THESE SO CALLED CREATIONIST TO EXPLAIN HOW JESUS CHRIST AND ORIGINAL SIN FIT INTO THEIR :confused: EXPRESSED BELIEF IN CREATIONISM.
 
JonHow said:
From all that I have read in all the sites/subsites/sub subsites listed in the "New Advent* website, ie, *Catholic Answers, Catholic Online, American **Catholic and Catholic News Agency *to name but a few, you will find what seems to be that THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and all the popes since Pius XII believe in evolution. They attempt to explain its not evolution but creationism that is a fact. YET, NO WHERE HAVE I FOUND ANY HONEST, FORTHRITE EFFORT BY THESE SO CALLED CREATIONIST TO EXPLAIN HOW JESUS CHRIST AND ORIGINAL SIN FIT INTO THEIR :confused: EXPRESSED BELIEF IN CREATIONISM.
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:confused: :confused:
There’s no problem explaining Jesus Christ and original sin with the “creationism” belief. (That’s the belief held by all those who defined the doctrine of original sin!)

Did you perhaps mean the opposite - "How do those who believe in evolution explain, or reconcile, the doctrine of original sin with the theory of evolution?
 
As for Evolution, I personally reject Evolution. It is a scientific theory, but it isn’t theological dogma
 
I guess I agree with Tobinator and Nita… Biblical Creation fits in perfectly with the scriptural truth of original sin and the teachings of Jesus Christ.
It is evolution theory that seems totally irreconcilable.

JW
 
Jesus_wept said:
I guess I agree with Tobinator and Nita… Biblical Creation fits in perfectly with the scriptural truth of original sin and the teachings of Jesus Christ.
It is evolution theory that seems totally irreconcilable.

JW
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If that were the case then why does the Church allow us to believe in evolution?
 
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/october/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20081031_academy-sciences_en.html

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO MEMBERS OF THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR PLENARY ASSEMBLY
Clementine Hall
Friday, 31 October 2008
**
Perhaps this will interest you. Words from the Holy Father who opens his address with these words:
In choosing the topic Scientific Insight into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life, you seek to focus on an area of enquiry which elicits much interest. In fact, many of our contemporaries today wish to reflect upon the ultimate origin of beings, their cause and their end, and the meaning of human history and the universe.
In this context, questions concerning the relationship between science’s reading of the world and the reading offered by Christian Revelation naturally arise. My predecessors Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II noted that there is no opposition between faith’s understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences. Philosophy in its early stages had proposed images to explain the origin of the cosmos on the basis of one or more elements of the material world. This genesis was not seen as a creation, but rather a mutation or transformation; it involved a somewhat horizontal interpretation of the origin of the world. A decisive advance in understanding the origin of the cosmos was the consideration of being qua being and the concern of metaphysics with the most basic question of the first or transcendent origin of participated being. In order to develop and evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being. It must be created, in other words, by the first Being who is such by essence.
 
Pope Pius XII wrote a Papal Encyclical letter on the subject of Evolution and Catholicism.

I am surprised this*** Humani Generis*** Papal Encyclical isn’t mentioned more often:

ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P12HUMAN.HTM

I think it would help many Catholics who find Evolution is a
stumbling block to their faith.

John Paul II confirmed this Encyclical during a speech he gave to a group of scientists.

Basically, in a nutshell, the Catholic view of Evolution is that man, even if he evolved, was created with a soul.

Also, you need to believe that mankind had two orginal parents (call them Adam and Eve).

There are also some interesting articles about the subject of Evolution here at the Catholic Answers website.

I think you just type in Evolution in at the Catholic Answers’ home website, and they will appear.

That said, Pope Benedict XVI has seemed to take a more skeptical stance towards Evolution, and has made a few interesting comments about the matter.

I am not sure how these statements are interpreted by Catholic Theologians.

If you are looking for something more scientific that explains everything, the Catholic Church isn’t a Scientific Research Institute, and I think, since Galileo, the Catholic Church has viewed the Book of Genesis from an Anagogical interpretation, reading it for its spiritual meaning, rather than viewing the Bible as a scientific text or work on astronomy or biology.
 
Hi Jon,

The question of evolution is essentially a scientific question and the Church does not get involved in scientific questions. Time and again the popes and others church authorities have stated that we can accept evolution as long as it does not apply to the spiritual nature of man. We must also accept that all humans presently on earth are descended from one couple.

Verbum
 
Boy have you got that wrong and to prove it, here is just a small excerpt from a book written by Thomas E.Woods How the Catholic church built western civilization.

lewrockwell.com/woods/woods40.html

It is all very well to point out that important scientists, like Louis Pasteur, have been Catholic. More revealing is how many priests have distinguished themselves in the sciences. It turns out, for instance, that the first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body was Fr. Giambattista Riccioli. The man who has been called the father of Egyptology was Fr. Athanasius Kircher (also called “master of a hundred arts” for the breadth of his knowledge). Fr. Roger Boscovich, who has been described as “the greatest genius that Yugoslavia ever produced,” has often been called the father of modern atomic theory.
In the sciences it was the Jesuits in particular who distinguished themselves; some 35 craters on the moon, in fact, are named after Jesuit scientists and mathematicians.

Also there is Fr. Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian priest, father of genetics. Msgr.George Lemairtre Belgina priest, prof of physics who proposed the “big bang theory” , just to mention a few.
 
The views of Mariano Artigas, a member of Brussels’ International Academy of the Philosophy of Sciences and of the Vatican’s St. Thomas Pontifical Academy might be relevant. Here in a Q&A session he lays out key points unav.es/cryf/english/entrevistaartigas3.html
Q: Your view on evolution and creation is interesting: “Evolution can only take place if there is something capable of evolving: Evolution from nothing is a contradiction. This is why evolutionist theories cannot be used to affirm or deny creation.” Can you elucidate this affirmation further?
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Artigas: The Christian idea of creation states that everything that exists depends on God for its being. Instead, evolution defines beings through mutation and natural selection. They are two different planes.
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And Cardinal Schonborn has some interesting thoughts too ignatiusinsight.com/features2008/schall_schonborn_oct08.asp
Evolution, as a generalization within the descriptive science of biological change, can for this as well as for other reasons be taken as established beyond any doubt whatsoever. The Evolutionist Doctrine, however, is a very different matter. Not content to confine itself to a systematic description of biological change, it purports to prove it and explain it in much the same manner as proof and explanation are offered in the instructional sciences. This is a philosophical error with the most disastrous consequences
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