Good comment, jw.
I cannot imagine a Christian group not recognizing pursuit of info about design being a legitimate search. I hope this is just knee-jerk of the moment after the Dover case by a few of the vatican's nervous nellies.
I wonder why the Vatican feels it needs to keep commenting on the subject. Did they have anything to say about the Korean stem-cell scientist who turned out to be a fraud? That's far more relevant to Catholic interest in science than this US squabble.