In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points.
Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as 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 favor of this theory.
True enough. But then then, it's also not possible to "wholly believe the Bible, *literally*", and believe a lot of other things that most people accept the truth of. For example, that the Earth is round, and moves around the Sun, not vice versa. There are Biblical verses that, read *literally*, deny these things.
Oh, but you say, some of those things are not literal, they're figurative -- figures of speech. Fine, but then who's to decide which is which? That's where things get sticky, since fallible men are the ones who decide what's meant to be read literally and what's not.
The Bible can not be read 100% literally, or it becomes nonsense.
I tend to agree.
I do know for a fact that contrary to the previous poster's claim, MOST Christians do not believe in evolution.
Anyone can check out the countless mainstream Christian websites and find they almost all maintian a pro-creation, anti-evolution veiwpoint.
An extremely small minority attempt to reconcile evolution with Biblical creation.