Posted on 11/14/2005 5:12:54 AM PST by jodiluvshoes
In a remarkably odd statement this past week, the Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin!
In fact Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture said that "if the Bible were read correctly" that the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible."
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".
He went on to advocate that the idea of creation is a theological one, while the substance of origins is a scientific one and that Catholics should "know" how science sees such things so as to "understand better."
(Excerpt) Read more at muscleheadrevolution.com ...
The Catholic Church has never believed in a literal translation of the Bible.
Pish-tosh. One Cardinal's personal opinion is not an official teaching of the Catholic Church, any more than my personal opinion is.
The MSM is cranking up these stories practically weekly, for the specific purpose of creating confusion ... just as they publicise every goofball who wants to talk about how "Christian" homosexuality is.
Sorry, as a Catholic, I was never taught that evolution didn't occur.
Genesis was taught as metaphor. Something happened to God's creation through man's fall, but just what, we don't know.
The fact remains that man fell.
The Church permits a variety of interpretations.
I don't believe that is an accurate statement. In fact, I believe the truth is exactly opposite. The Church teaches that only the Church can provide accurate interpretations.
Then I'm afraid you've been misinformed. On many matters of Biblical interpretation, the Church permits a variety of interpretations, unless they conflict with authoritative rulings. For instance, the "interpretation" that the universe is the result simply of random chance, with no action of God's, is not within the bounds of permitted opinion, if one claims to be teaching the Catholic Faith.
For some areas of Scripture, the Church has determined that one interpretation is accurate, and others are erroneous, but these cases are far fewer than those for which various opinions may be held.
This isn't exactly news. There have been a couple of threads on it already.
I agree, at least when I went to Catholic school in the '40s and '50s that was the case. Darwin was accepted as not in conflict with the Bible. We were taught that God created everything but worked within the laws of nature and science that He created. We also learned that the Bible was full of metaphors that could be applied to life today. If we took everything literally, they were simply strange miracles of the time and had no real application today.
They see the need to expand...in mind and in body...for soul cleansing and also for profit. Since there is hardly any land to conquer and people to convert forcefully, why not * give in * ,somewhat, to new ideas...they have a business to run.
it's not like we have the original copy of the Bible on in our midths...times change, so do people.
You forgot possibility number 3: JamesP81 is wrong.
"The Catholic Church has never believed in a literal translation of the Bible."
Yes, otherwise they would not disregard Jesus' command to "call NO man your father."
I hate to break it to you, but their already is a tremendous rift between Catholics and evangelicals. Jesus used metaphor and parable to make points in the sciptures, and the book of Genesis is no different. Do you really believe the world was repopulated by the two animals that survived on the ark? That is genetically impossible and that fact can be proven. One cannot continue a species from just a single pair. Also, how did the giant earthworm from the Australian subcontinent make it all the way to Noah's boat and back again. It can't swim. Perhaps it was carried by the African swallow?
Evangelicals and Catholics share many moral and theological beliefs, a tremendous respect for life being one of them. There are also a great many differences. Some of the seminal research on Cepheid Variable stars was done at a Catholic observatory by monks. This data provided additional support for the expanding universe theory "big bang". If I recall, Pope John Paul the Great met with Stephen Hawking and did not find the big bang theory in contradiction to church teachings.
Perhaps the Catholic Church should go back to persecuting scientists who believe the world is round and that the earth is the center of the universe and that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects.
The Catholic Church has never been,nor ever will be a reliable source of scientific understanding. At least they stopped doing the whole blood-letting thing.
It didn't take long for them to come out of the woodwork!
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