Of course not, and even the spiky blue airhead on cable TV can’t make it so.
See, for example, The Pope’s Views on Evolution Haven’t Really Evolved in The Atlantic.
and The Tablet Pope Francis Didn’t Revolutionize the Catholic Church’s Stance on Evolution , And the media should stop saying he did.
Or Time’s characterization of “Big change” claims as “papal bull.”
In fairness, the legacy media haven’t been claiming big changes to nearly the extent one might have expected. I am not sure why they haven’t. One rather expected them to create a deafening roar around the merest hint.
I do know, unfortunately, one reason that probably doesn’t account for the lack of full roar. It probably isn’t because they understand how the Catholic Church works.
Or ever plan to.
First, Francis *does not have the power* to change fundamental Catholic doctrine, received from the Apostles, handed down from bishop to bishop for two millennia. The Church is decidedly not the place to go if you expect to shamble into a pew Sunday morning and hear that the synod of elders or bishops have voted that partial birth abortion is okay or that black people have a different Adam and Eve from white people (Bruno’s view), or that half the planet should be given over to wild animals (E. O. Wilson’s view), as a religious obligation.
There may be a religious organization down the road somewhere (est. 1983) that fronts each, or some, or all of these views. It’s probably not your local Holy Family Parish*, however, and certainly not the Catechism. Even the Pope does not have the power such synods wield.
He is merely the current occupant of the Chair of St. Peter, which is nothing by comparison.
Catholics are expected to believe only a few things around evolution, and they are no help to Darwin’s followers. A useful source is Catholic biologist Ann Gauger, in Evolution News & Views:
According to Pope Francis, evolution per se still requires a Creator and cannot be the result of purely physical causes, for God is “the Creator who brought all things into being.” He continues by saying that the world, indeed the whole universe, come “from a supreme Principle of creative love,” and not from chaos.
Further, he said, “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.” The Creator “created beings and let them develop in accordance with the internal laws that He has given to each one, so that they could arrive at their fulfillment.”
Notice, Pope Francis never states that all changes are the result of evolution. He simply says that God created life in such a way that it can evolve, or change over time to reach its full potential. What its full potential means is not clear, and could cover quite a few different interpretations, everything from guided evolution that produces all the panoply of present life, to special creation of each species, genus, or family that then develops to its full potential, within the bounds of its type.
In particular with regard to human origins, he said, “God created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.”
“God gives human beings a different sort of autonomy from that of nature, which is freedom,” the Pope said. “No matter how limited, man’s activity partakes of the power of God and is able to build a world fit for his dual life of body and spirit, to build a humane world for all human beings.”
What can we take from this? More.
* I remember sitting in Holy Family a couple of years ago, when the priest who was preaching at that mass took care to inform us that all of the fathers (there is a seminary associated with the church) would go to prison rather than teach under compulsion any doctrine concerning sexuality that was not a doctrine of the Catholic Church or deny any of the Church’s doctrines. That would be one way of making clear where the Church stands. Maybe in prison, but nonetheless, where it has always stood.
That kind of attitude has brought an abrupt end to certain types of oppression in Canada. We hope for religious freedom, for you as well as for us.
Put another way: Come on in, the water’s fine. (= You don’t have to put up with it just because some government official says you do.)
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