I have previously discussed my admiration for Pope Francis, who strikes me as a truly holy man in every true sense of that term. Francis has pulled the Church into the Twenty-First Century with massive reforms and new approaches. This week saw one of the most remarkable such changes: Pope Francis announced that it is perfectly consistent to be a Catholic and an evolutionist. For many Catholics who cannot deny the evidence that the Earth is billions rather than thousands of years old, the announcement shows that it is possible to believe in both God and evolution.
Pope Francis declared that the Big Bang theory “doesn’t contradict the intervention of a divine Creator, but demands it.” The comment came at the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, gathered in the Vatican to discuss “Evolving Concepts of Nature.” Francis said that the creator “brought all things into being . . . from a supreme Principle of creative love.” He added that “[e]volution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”
On my recent visit to the Vatican, I was told by multiple people that there has been a massive increase in visitors due to the unprecedented popularity of this Pope. Indeed, churches are reporting rising congregations after years of decline due to the draw of Pope Francis. Ironically, he is the greatest evidence that institutions like humans can evolve into better and higher forms.
Liberals within and without the Church sometimes misunderstand the meaning of “social justice” as taught by the Church. They readily conflate it with political liberalism, socialism, or communism. It is neither of those. Social Justice starts with the right to life and the right to natural, unassisted death. It includes the right to private property, and the working together of humans OUTSIDE THE STRICTURES OF GOVERNMENT to aid, assist and care for one another.
I really love it when commenters who have no understanding of Catholic theology and teachings do their best to describe what they mean. It’s like reading The Onion.
Concerning human evolution, the Church’s teaching allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.
Justice Holmes, As bishops retire, Francis will be able to appoint new ones. He just appointed a liberal to the Chicago Archdiocese, but you are right that they made him walk back his statement last week. There is far more hope than there was before he was chosen.
Annie, I think i will refrain. I don’t think there appears to be any common ground.
Personally I am not convinced that Pope Francis is anymore that a great PR man. Unfortunately this pronouncement about evolution and Catholic teachings is a fine example. Catholic schools have been teaching evolution for at least 50 years and maybe much longer. I am unaware of any debate on that issue. As a result while this may sound progressive its not.
But conservative Catholics need not worry about even progressive sounding Papal pronouncements, the Conservative bishops have made it clear to Francis that he is not in charge they are. As a result, I see little reason for hope.
SWM ask Pogo about the SC’s ruling on the ACA. That will make his day, lol.
Gosh those socialistic European countries like Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany are such Commies! Why they have such a high happiness quotient is a mystery.
Pogo, LOL. You must really be disappointed in the choice of Pope Francis.
Pogo…. Oh never mind.
Maybe Rush Limbaugh will preach a sermon against the Pope again, bcause it looks like this Pope is preaching evolution and social justice. Where is Glenn Beck to tell millions of Catholics to “run, run away” from that “social justice church!” No wonder the Pope is so poplular. Most people want to live in this century.
SWM, “social justice” has in practice simply meant socialism.
Since socialism routinely ends up as totalitarianism, how it represents justice remains a mystery to me.
Social justice ends up violating Commandments 1, 8 and 10.
And since FDR’s socialism prolonged the Depression, how increasing the duration of penury fosters justice or love also remains unexplained.
Does god ever ponder where she came from?
doglover – back in the day, there was was a rival magazine to Mad magazine and they used to have a photo back cover. This was during the early ’60s. This one time they had a picture of a guy with a leather flying helmet on and the caption said, “While I was up there, I saw God. First of all, she’s black.”
“Pope Francis genuinely loves people, but his tendency toward socialist economics leaves me cold.” Pogo I think it is called social justice. Long been very important to many catholics. I only look at catholic churches that have a “peace and social justice” ministry. The Franciscans are good at that. Raised our children in a Franciscan church when they were young. Once, asked the headmaster of a catholic school in Texas if they taught evolution at his school. He said, of course. That was the better choice as the public schools there teach creationism.
“He said, according to Breitbart’s translation: “Evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.””
Catholics have never had any problem with that; I don’t know why it even needed to be said.
Why this?
Why now?
I don’t really understand what prompted the announcement.
Do Catholics anywhere preach against it?
Pope Francis genuinely loves people, but his tendency toward socialist economics leaves me cold.
Socialism is anti-religious and especially anti-Christian, wherever applied, sometimes virulently so, sometimes murderously.
He seems blithely unaware of that history, which is a serious fault.
If he truly loved people and wanted them to be free, this moral arc wouldn’t bend toward injustice.
Of all the religions, the evangelical atheist’s is the most obnoxious.
Hubble proved that the universe was much younger than the ages of some of the stars
Hubble proved “great wall” stuctures that there was not enough time for an exploging mass to form.
Hubble proved “red shifts” where velocities of particles fell into like groups and not distributed eveny like an explosion.
Hubble proved the galaxy is not slowing down from an explosion, but heaven only knows, that it is speeding up!
Don’t you love science facts
“On my recent visit to the Vatican, I was told by multiple people that there has been a massive increase in visitors due to the unprecedented popularity of this Pope.” – JT
Not surprising because his feet seem to be on the ground with the people, and his mind elevated enough to see further than many leaders.
The bottom line is that life will always remain a mystery. If science can irrefutably explain anything and/or everything to whatever degree the question will always remain, What went on before that? or What caused that? For me the inclusion of supernatural beings in the mix should be, ‘If there is a god’, not that there is one. The christian religion allows free will; islam will eventually as this nonsense being perpetrated now is not islam but blatant thuggery. It is what has gone on for thousands of years under a variety of flags, and they are flags nothing more.
Religion is a work in progress as is science. The only fact that will remain is the inevitable next question. What caused the big bang? What made god? Well thus far the only conceivable answer is, we did. If there is a god it would certainly want us to deal with ourselves properly. Doing that is all that there is to do. The bad news is there for all to see: North Korea, ISIS, Saudi Arabia and the like, Egypt, the Koch brothers, W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. The good news is also there in the workings of the Western Nations and the transformation of China, India, Brazil, and parts of the US.
Keep moving the goal-posts.
The pope is a costumed mammal who pretends to know the will of a manmade sky-monster. If he makes moral statements with which one agrees, that in no way validates the omnipresent nonsense of Catholicism.
All animals are connected by common ancestry, with evolution by natural selection acting as the vehicle for speciation: and we humans are part of that blossoming tree, which does not require intervention by said sky-monster. A bit contradictory therefore to say one can accept evolution while believing in a particular mythic narrative: for as the evidence shows, our origin is shared, not divinely distinct.
Children of Catholics, needing to protect their asses, from Priests….. Unfortunately, still very consistent!!!!
AC – read today where a 34 year old female teacher from a public school tattooed her female victim’s name on her body. More and more female teachers have been caught with their students.
I think you need to start changing your target of opportunity.
Frankly, this is no big deal. Catholic schools have been teaching evolution for ever. I have never heard a Catholic scientist come out against evolution. And I agree with him on the Big Bang, although I am agnostic. I am an Uncaused Cause person and the Big Bang requires an Uncaused Cause.