Much of the late John Paul II’s pontificate was spent clarifying what Catholicism did and, just as importantly, DIDN’T teach. These clarifications, especially in areas such as humanity, sexuality, and the sanctity of human life, often earned him the enmity of self-styled \u201cprogressives.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was one area, though, in which many of these same \u201cprogressives\u201d hailed the late Pope: And that was evolution. His 1996 statement calling evolution \u201cmore than just a hypothesis\u201d was seen as an acceptance of the compatibility of Darwinian evolution and Catholic faith. It turns out that John Paul II’s critics were as wrong about this as they were about the rest of his teaching.<\/p>\n
Someone who should know is Cardinal Christoph Sch\u00f6nborn, the Archbishop of Vienna. Sch\u00f6nborn was chosen by John Paul II to be lead editor of the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. He is also close to the current pope, Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n
In early April, Sch\u00f6nborn spoke with then-Cardinal Ratzinger and told him that he \u201cwould like to have a more explicit statement\u201d about the Church’s position on evolution. Ratzinger encouraged Sch\u00f6nborn \u201cto go on,\u201d and the result was a piece that appeared July 7 in the NEW YORK TIMES.<\/p>\n
From the start, Sch\u00f6nborn rejects the idea that the \u201cneo-Darwinian dogma\u201d \u2014 of \u201can unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection\u201d \u2014 is \u201csomehow compatible with Christian faith.\u201d While the Church leaves to \u201cscience many details about the history of life on earth,\u201d it also \u201cproclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world … \u201c<\/p>\n
He characterized attempts to deny or \u201cexplain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology\u201d as \u201cideology, not science\u201d and \u201can abdication of human intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sch\u00f6nborn’s piece quickly provoked a reaction. \u201cLeading Cardinal Redefines Church’s View on Evolution\u201d was the NEW YORK TIMES headline a few days later. The headline should have read: \u201cCatholics Mean It When They Recite the Nicene Creed on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
After all, the Cardinal simply said that a Christian cannot consistently believe in God, the Creator of \u201call that is, seen and unseen,\u201d while also believing that life is the result of \u201can unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Note that I said \u201cChristian\u201d and not just \u201cCatholic.\u201d The incompatibility Sch\u00f6nborn described is just as true for Protestants as Catholics. What’s more, the piece was the product of unprecedented cooperation between Cardinal Sch\u00f6nborn and the largely evangelical Discovery Institute. Discovery’s vice-president, Mark Ryland, \u201curged\u201d Cardinal Sch\u00f6nborn to write the piece, and it was placed with the help of Discovery’s public relations firm.<\/p>\n
In many respects, this effort is a vindication also of Chuck Colson’s sometimes controversial labors in \u201cEvangelicals and Catholics Together.\u201d Instead of allowing our opponents to play us off one another, we affirm our shared beliefs. Intelligent design can no longer be dismissed as just an evangelical issue. It’s a Christian one. Now that’s a \u201credefinition\u201d worth celebrating.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint with Chuck Colson” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much of the late John Paul II’s pontificate was spent clarifying what Catholicism did and, just as importantly, DIDN’T teach. These clarifications, especially in areas such as humanity, sexuality, and the sanctity of human life, often earned him the enmity of self-styled \u201cprogressives.\u201d There was one area, though, in which many of these same \u201cprogressives\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2303,63,1293,387],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}