July 25, 1999

Dear Parishioners,

Evolution, Science and the Church seem to many people, much of the time, to be very uncomfortable with each other. Despite what you may read in the press, or hear trumpeted by fundamentalist Christians, I believe the exact opposite is true.

Evolution is a little broader and more balanced than the belief that we're all descended from monkeys! It is the highly respected theory that all forms of life descend, with modification, from earlier forms. Some drastic revisions of Darwin's original theory are proposed today, but most scientists accept a similar synthesis of genetics, molecular biology and Darwin's principles. In a slightly extended sense, "evolution" also refers to the unfolding story of the entire universe.

Despite some initial misgivings, Catholic teaching and theology has been pretty hospitable to the theory of evolution. From the debates at Oxford in 1860, to the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925, to the present day campaign for creationism in the classroom, strong hostility to evolution has been largely a Protestant rather than a Catholic concern.

Originally in 1616, the Vatican put the works of Copernicus and Galileo on its Index of Forbidden Books, along with "all book teaching that the earth moves and the sun stands still." By the early 1800's, the Pope was personally approving texts that taught precisely that, and the Vatican was quietly and bashfully removing those titles from its forbidden list - all this well before the appearance of Darwin and his theories. With the arrival of Darwin, despite some concern and caution, there were no ringing condemnations from Rome and no rush to forbid the reading of evolutionary literature. In 1909 the Vatican's Commission on Scripture agreed that no one was bound to the literal words of Genesis with the seven day version of creation. The Church was echoing the view of leaders 300 years earlier who said "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." In 1950 Pope Pius XII cautiously and officially recognized evolution as a plausible theory. In 1994, under Pope John Paul II, the New Catholic Catechism complimented science for "splendidly enriching our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the universe, the development of life forms and the appearance of human beings."

Today Catholic theology is quite comfortable with the view that God "creates" through evolution. It distances itself from "creationism" which insists on a literalist view of the seven days of creation or the instant version. It also disagrees with "creation science" or "scientific creationism" which considers the Bible a more reliable source for scientific information than modern evolutionary biology. The Catholic community leaves lots of room for a variety of personal beliefs about the world's start-up; its teaching also allows generous room for the possibility of evolution as the means of Gods creative action.

Because of their concentration on social justice and human freedom, Catholic teachers and theologians have not spent a great deal of time or print on just how evolution fits in. But it's safe to say that contemporary Catholic theologians maintain a high respect for scientific study and theory. They see the data of evolutionary science as consistent with the Bible's God of compassionate love and persuading power. They consider the random nature of evolution as compatible with a God who loves freedom and lets the world be. They recognize in the loss and suffering of our evolving universe the self-emptying God revealed in the cross of Christ.

For myself I take both the Bible (study of God) and science (study of nature) seriously, recalling as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, "Making a mistake about nature leads to making a mistake about God."

Your Pastor,

Brian T. Joyce