Because the God of science is the God of the Bible and the God of Truth. Truth cannot contradict truth. Any apparent contradiction between the two must be just that.
The Church allows very wide latitude in the interpretation of Genesis (and biblical interpretation generally), ranging from a literal interpretation to a very figurative one, because neither science nor biblical exegesis is conclusive. The core truths that Catholics must hold regarding Genesis are the doctrines of creation from nothing, Original Sin, and with almost as high a degree of certainty, its logical corollary, the existence of original parents of the human race.
Regarding alleged cases of possession, the Church recommends first medical examination, and then, once medical explanations of physical phenomena have been found inadequate, exorcism.
I wish one of you "unity of truth" people (who always wind up making a radical division between "scientific truth" and "literal truth") would explain to me why when an "apparent contradiction" occurs it is the uniformitarian scientific explanations that must always be accepted as "what actually happened" while the Biblical account must always be relegated to didactic parable. Is it not ever possible that the uniformitarian scientific assumption must yield?
The Church allows very wide latitude in the interpretation of Genesis (and biblical interpretation generally), ranging from a literal interpretation to a very figurative one, because neither science nor biblical exegesis is conclusive.
You mean the "universal consent of the Fathers" isn't definitive? How many liberal theories must Catholics sift through in order to arrive at a "conclusion?"
The core truths that Catholics must hold regarding Genesis are the doctrines of creation from nothing, Original Sin, and with almost as high a degree of certainty, its logical corollary, the existence of original parents of the human race.
I note your refusal to deal with the issue of hypocrisy in defending Catholic traditions while subjecting the Jewish traditions that delivered the Bible to you to scientific criticism. Isn't this precisely the attitude of Protestants who accept the "Catholic" Bible while rejecting Catholic traditions about it?
BTW, at which point in Genesis do its characters suddenly cease to be mythical and become historical? I assume after Chapter 11?
I hope the Catholic Church will be equally willing to place all its teachings in the dock of science and modernity, however, and not just the Bible.