That was also Galileo's opinion.
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany. Galileo's opinion about science/scripture conflicts.
It didn't persuade the learned gentlemen of the Inquisition, however:
The Crime of Galileo: Indictment and Abjuration of 1633. The heresy confession.
However, these things sometimes get corrected. More than three centuries later, the Catholic church has come around to Galileo's thinking:
The Pope's 1996 statement on evolution. Physical evolution is not in conflict with Christianity. Excerpts:
It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say. In order to delineate the field of their own study, the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences.Pope Pius XII's 1950 Encyclical, Humani Generis. Referred to in the 1996 statement. Excerpt:Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical [see link & excerpt below], fresh knowledge has led to the recognition that evolution is more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory.
... 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, on the part of men experienced in both fields, 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 - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.
And Thomas Paine's, and other men of the Enlightenment.
They're getting better then. It only took them half that time to accept evolution.