The Vatican's View of
Evolution: The Story of Two Popes
The
relationship between the papacy and scientists has
sometimes—just ask Galileo—been testy.
Interestingly, however, the Catholic Church has
largely sat out the cultural battle over the teaching of
evolution. One of the
reasons Catholics have remained largely on the sidelines
is the well-established system of parochial schools in
the United States, which make state laws relating to the
public school curriculum of much less concern to
Catholic clergy and parents than to Protestant clergy
and parents. A second
reason is that the Catholic Church, at least in the
twentieth century, takes a more flexible approach to the
interpreting Genesis than do several Protestant
denominations. H. L.
Mencken expressed admiration for how Catholics handled
the evolution issue: [The
advantage of Catholics] lies in the simple fact that
they do not have to decide either for Evolution or
against it. Authority has
not spoken on the subject; hence it puts no burden
upon conscience, and may be discussed realistically
and without prejudice. A
certain wariness, of course, is necessary. I say that authority has not
spoken; it may, however, speak tomorrow, and so the
prudent man remembers his step. But
in the meanwhile there is nothing to prevent him
examining all available facts, and even offering
arguments in support of them or against them—so long
as those arguments are not presented as dogma. (STJ, 163) A
majority of American Catholics probably sided with the
prosecution in the Scopes trial, but—with one notable
exception, defense attorney Dudley Field Malone—all the
major participants in the controversy, from the author
of the Butler Act, to the defendant, the judge, the
jury, and the lawyers were either members of Protestant
churches or were non-churchgoers. Catholics
tended to be viewed with some skepticism in Pope
Pius XII, a deeply conservative man, directly addressed
the issue of evolution in a 1950 encyclical, Humani
Generis. The document
makes plain the pope’s fervent hope that evolution will
prove to be a passing scientific fad, and it attacks
those persons who “imprudently and indiscreetly hold
that evolution …explains the origin of all things.” Nonetheless, Pius XII states
that nothing in Catholic doctrine is contradicted by a
theory that suggests one specie might evolve into
another—even if that specie is man.
The Pope declared: The Teaching Authority of the
Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the
present state of human sciences and sacred theology,
research and discussions, on the part of men experiences
in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine
of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin
of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living
matter—for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that
souls are immediately created by God. In other
words, the Pope could live with evolution, so long as
the process of “ensouling” humans was left to God. (He also insisted on a role
for Adam, whom he believed committed a sin— mysteriously
passed along through the “doctrine of original sin”—that
has affected all subsequent generations.) Pius XII
cautioned, however, that he considered the jury still
out on the question of evolution’s validity. It should not be accepted,
without more evidence, “as though it were a certain
proven doctrine.” (ROA, 81) Pope
John Paul II revisited the question of evolution in a
1996 a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Unlike Pius XII, John
Paul is broadly read, and embraces science and reason. He won the respect of many
scientists in 1993, when in April 1993 he formally
acquitted Galileo, 360 years after his indictment, of
heretical support for Copernicus’s heliocentrism. The pontiff began his
statement with the hope that “we will all be able to
profit from the fruitfulness of a trustful dialogue
between the Church and science.” Evolution,
he said, is “an essential subject which deeply interests
the Church.” He recognized
that science and Scripture sometimes have “apparent
contradictions,” but said that when this is the case, a
“solution” must be found because “truth cannot
contradict truth.” The Pope
pointed to the Church’s coming to terms with Galileo’s
discoveries concerning the nature of the solar system as
an example of how science might inspire the Church to
seek a new and “correct interpretation of the inspired
word.” When the
pope came to the subject of the scientific merits of
evolution, it soon became clear how much things had
changed in the nearly fifty years since the Today,
almost half a century after 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 the theory. Evolution,
a doctrine that Pius XII only acknowledged as an
unfortunate possibility, John Paul accepts forty-six
years later “as an effectively proven fact.” (ROA, 82) Pope
John Paul’s words on evolution received major play in
international news stories. Evolution
proponents
such as Stephen Jay Gould enthusiastically welcomed
what he saw as the Pope’s endorsement of evolution. Gould was reminded of a
passage in Proverbs (25:25): “As cold waters to a
thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” (ROA, 820)
Creationists, however, expressed dismay at the
pontiff’s words and suggested that the initial news
reports might have been based on a faulty translation.
(John Paul gave the speech in French.)
Perhaps, some creationists argued, the pope
really said, “the theory evolution is more than one
hypothesis,” not “the theory of evolution is more than
a hypothesis.” If
that were so, the Pope might have been suggesting that
there are multiple theories of evolution, and all of
them might be wrong. The
“faulty translation” theory, however, suffered at
least two problems. Most
obviously, the theory collapsed when the Catholic News
Service of the Most scientists would be
content to let Pius and John Paul have their
“ensoulment” theory and walk away happy.
Not Richard Dawkins, however.
In an essay on the Pope’s evolution message
called “You Can’t Have it Both Ways” the
controversy-loving biologist accused Pope John Paul of
“casuistical double-talk” and “obscurantism.” (SAR, 209)
Dawkins took issue with the Pope’s declaring
off-limits theories suggesting that the human mind is
an evolutionary product. In his address the Pope said: In
his essay, Dawkins paraphrased the Pope’s statement: “In plain language, there
came a moment in the evolution of hominids when God
intervened and injected a human soul into a previously
animal lineage.” Dawkins
expresses mock curiosity as to when God jumped into
the evolution picture: “When? A
million years ago? Two
million years ago? Between
Homo erectus and Homo sapiens? Between ‘archaic’ Homo
sapiens and H. sapiens sapiens?” Clearly, Dawkins finds the
divine intervention implausible.
He suggests that the ensoulment theory becomes
a necessary part of Catholic theology in order to
sustain the important distinction between species in
Catholic morality. It is
fine for a Catholic to eat meat, Dawkins notes, but
“abortion and euthanasia are murder because human
life is involved.” Dawkins
contends that evolution tells us that there is no
“great gulf between Homo sapiens and the rest
of the animal kingdom.” The
Pope’s insistence to the contrary is, in the
biologist’s opinion, “an antievolutionary intrusion
into the domain of science.” Dawkins
makes no secret of his distain for the distinction so
critical to the Pope John Paul’s 1996 speech on
evolution: I
suppose it is gratifying to have the pope as an ally
in the struggle against fundamentalist creationism. It is certainly amusing to
see the rug pulled out from under the feet of Catholic
creationists such as Michael Behe.
Even so, given a choice between
honest-to-goodness fundamentalism on the one hand, and
the obscurantist, disingenuous doublethink of the
Roman Catholic Church on the other, I know which I
prefer. (SAR, 211) Popes
have had considerably less to say recently on the
subject of the origin of the universe than they have on
the subject of human origins. In
1951, interestingly, Pius XII (who so grudgingly
acknowledged the possibility of evolution) celebrated
news from the world of science that the universe might
have been created in a Big Bang. (The
term,
first employed by astronomer Fred Hoyle was meant to be
derisive, but it stuck.) In
a speech before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences he
offered an enthusiastic endorsement of the theory: " But the
Pope didn’t stop there. He
went on to express the surprising conclusion that the
Big Bang proved the existence of God: Thus,
with that concreteness which is characteristic of
physical proofs, [science] has confirmed the
contingency of the universe and also the well-founded
deduction as to the epoch when the world came forth
from the hands of the Creator. Hence,
creation took place. We
say: therefore, there is a Creator.
Therefore, God exists! The man
who laid the groundwork for the Big Bang theory,
astronomer Edwin Hubble, received a letter from a friend
asking whether the Pope’s announcement might qualify him
for “sainthood.” The friend
enthused that until he read the statement in the
morning’s paper, “I had not dreamed that the Pope would
have to fall back on you for proof of the existence of
God.” (ME, 255) Other
people, including Belgian astronomer Georges
Lamaître and the Vatican’s science advisor, had a
different reaction. They
understood that the Big Bang in 1951 remained very much
a contested theory and worried what might be the effect
if the Pope pinned the Catholic faith too much on its
proving true. They spoke
privately to the Pope about their concerns, and the Pope
never brought up the topic again in public. Big Bang
theories become a problem for Catholic theology only
when they consider “the moment of creation.” That, at least, is what Pope
John Paul allegedly told Stephen Hawking and other
physicists during an audience that followed a papal
scientific conference on cosmology.
(Some scientists dispute Hawking's account, and
say that the Pope suggested no limitations on their
inquiry.) The Pope told the physicists they should not
inquire into the Big Bang itself because that was “the
work of God.” Stephen W.
Hawking, in his A Brief History of Time,
reported that he was among those physicists whom the
Pope privately addressed. He
wrote: notes:
SOG= Summer for the Gods by Edward J. Larson (1997) SAR= Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (edited by Paul Kurtz)(2003) ROA=Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life by Stephen J. Gould (1999) STJ= H. L. Mencken on Religion by S. T. Joshi (2002) ME= Measuring Eternity by Martin Gorst (2001) |