From what I can determine from recent pronouncements, the Vatican is not backing off the process of evicting Darwinism (“evolutionism”) as an innocuous belief system that a good Catholic can accept. Here’s Cardinal Schoenborn recently proposing an evolution debate:
Cardinal Schönborn, who sparked a worldwide debate in 2005 with an article in the New York Times on the subject, called for clarification of the difference between the “theory of evolution” and “evolutionism,” the latter understood as an ideology, based on scientific theory.
By way of example, the cardinal mentioned Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who saw in the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species,” “the scientific foundation for their Marxist materialist theory. This is evolutionism, not theory of evolution.”
The archbishop of Vienna warned against the application of this evolutionist ideology in fields such as economic neo-liberalism, or bioethical issues, where there is the risk of creating new eugenic theories.
[ … ]
Cardinal Schönborn explained that the phrase meant that “the theory, as scientific theory, has been expanded with new scientific data, but of course that phrase cannot be interpreted as an ‘Amen’ of the Catholic Church to ideological evolutionism.”
It should be obvious to any reasonable person that Schoenborn knows exactly what the issues around Darwinism (“evolutionism”) are and he is not backing down.
Early last week ,the news broke that, as of August 19, Fr. George Coyne, 73, director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, had been replaced by Argentinian Jesuit Fr. José Gabriel Funes as the new director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory.
Coyne, who had been director since 1978, had become well known to the news media in recent months because of his opposition to Cardinal Schoenborn who, with the apparent blessing of the Pope, has been attempting to put some distance between the Catholic church and Darwinism since July 2005.
Maybe too well known.
The background to the issue is that John Paul II had said that evolution was “more than a hypothesis” but immediately went on to disclaim any materialist interpretation of it, which certainly includes Darwinism. However, the American pop sci media jumped on the first part of his statement like dogs on a rabbit, resulting in any number of essentially mistaken or misleading claims that the Catholic church “supports evolution.” These claims are, of course, used by those who would foist Darwinism on an unbelieving public.
In the sense in which the Catholic Church supports evolution, Michael Behe, the much reviled ID biochemist, also supports evolution. (Behe is a practicing Catholic, by the way.) That is, Behe and Schoenborn accept that evolution happens. But so? That doesn’t prove that Darwin was right about the power of natural selection or that today’s neo-Darwinists are right about anything at all. And those who revile Behe’s views would be unwise to hope for much better from the Vatican.
Apparently, Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education (called by some here the “National Center for Selling Evolution”) has attempted to spin Fr. Coyne’s departure as a normal retirement. He told Dick Fischer at the ASA discussion group that a media account that suggested otherwise was tendentious:
… after all, Coyne is 73 years old, and his retirement could have been predicted in any case. And there’s no reason to think that Coyne’s successor’s view differs from Coyne’s … “
Nice try, Glenn. But … Read More ›