What stances of the Catholic Church have been proven to be scientifically wrong?

Question

Official church stances, perhaps interpretations of the bible that are now know to be wrong (by fact)

obviously the catholic church is founded on a fallacy but i am more interested in like denying evolution, the big bang etc.

Answer 1

The Catholic Church has not denied the Theory of Evolution and a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître (1894–1966), who was also a professor of physics and astronomy, proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre



Most Christians do not take the stories of creation in the Bible literally. Catholics believe the book of Genesis tells religious truth and not necessarily historical fact.



One of the religious truths is that God created everything and declared all was good.



Catholics can believe in the theories of the big bang or evolution or both or neither.



On August 12, 1950 Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Humani generis:



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 experienced 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.



Here is the complete encyclical: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html



And here is the Address of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996 speaking of the Theory of Evolution: http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm



Here is an interesting article about Pope John Paul II's opinion in the matter: http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=4627



The Church supports science in the discovery of God's creation. At this time, the theories of the big bang and evolution are the most logical scientific explanations. However tomorrow someone may come up with better ideas.



As long as we believe that God started the whole thing, both the Bible and responsible modern science can live in harmony.



The Clergy Letter Project an open letter endorsing the Theory of Evolution signed by over 10,000 clergy from many different Christian denominations: http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evol_sun.htm



With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Copernicus was a pragmatist. He waited until he was dying before committing heresy. Galileo was bolder and suffered the Vatican's wrath. The Catholic church tried and convicted Galileo for confirming Copernicus' assertion that the earth revolved around the sun.



Although Pope John Paul II, appeared to embrace evolution, the Vatican now appears to be "clarifying" that position. Pope Benedict proclaimed that:



    "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."



The dominant evolutionary model denies the possibility of divine design within the process of evolution. This model cannot be reconciled with the Bible and the Christian truth claim. It appears that Vatican support for evolution is not absolute.

Answer 3

<> Dogmatically? No. Church Dogma is irrefutably True. <> A couple of matters fallacious together with your instance: a million) You have to cite Dogma that you just believe is fallacious. Otherwise, you are pork is not with the Church. Whether or no longer the earth is flat or circular has not anything to do with DOGMA. two) EVERYONE, Catholic colleges as good as secular colleges, taught that the earth used to be flat. Reason being, that is what the SCIENCE of the day believed. It used to be SCIENCE that used to be fallacious and short of correction, approximately the earth being flat, no longer the Church. <> If you wish to "turn out" the CHURCH "fallacious", you have to discover loopholes in it is DOGMA. In an attempt to hold you from losing it slow, permit me simply say that Church Dogma IS Perfect and void of errors.

Answer 4

There are no instances where science has proven any Catholic teaching to be wrong. Galileo tried to disprove the Bible with science, because the Bible says, "the sun rises and sets". The language of appearances is a literary device that Galileo refused to take into consideration.



The Catholic Church is not founded on any fallacy, she is founded on Jesus Christ. If you believe Jesus Christ to be a fallacy it is a matter of your personal belief, not any fact.



The Catholic Church has always taught that "no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language or as the common manner of speech those times required, and indeed still requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst most learned people" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18).



As the Catechism puts it, "Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are" (CCC 159). The Catholic Church has no fear of science or scientific discovery.

http://www.catholic.com/library/faith_science.asp

Answer 5

The Catholic Church accepts the Theory of Evolution and The Big Bang Theory was first proposed by (anyone? anyone?) a Catholic priest.



If you want to speak of stances taken by the Catholic Church that have been disproven scientifically, look no further than the Vatican and the missionaries of that church who go to Africa and tell the people there that condoms actually spread AIDS.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/09/aids



Edit- Meg, did you even bother reading my link?

Answer 6

What a funny question.



I'm not Catholic, and do not feel that the Holy Word of God is not to be taken literally.



So, I guess my question to you as well as the 'non-literal' Catholics is;



In the last days of earth, who do you want to believe will 'Save' you some Big Bang or the Almighty God?



The Bible should be taken literally by all who claim they belong to the Almighty God.



"For the Word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are" (Hebrews 4:12).



Be Blessed:-)

Answer 7

None.



However your false, ignorant, and uninformed idea that the Catholic Church opposes science can be easily disproven.



Google VATICAN OBSERVATORY

or follow this link vaticanobservatory.org/



The Vatican Observatory (Specola Vaticana) is an astronomical research and educational institution supported by the Holy See. Originally based in Rome, it now has headquarters and laboratory at the summer residence of the Pope in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, and an observatory at the Mount Graham International Observatory in the United States.



The Director of the Observatory is Fr. José Gabriel Funes, SJ. Many distinguished scholars have worked at the Observatory. In 2008, the Templeton Prize was awarded to cosmologist Fr. Michał Heller, a Vatican Observatory Adjunct Scholar.





BTW the guy that discovered Genetics? He was a Catholic Monk.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel (Wikipedia says he was a priest, but as far as I know he was only a monk, there is a difference.)



As for evolution... get this...



As part of the Houston Museum of Natural History's Celebration of the Birth of Charles Darwin



A) The local CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY will be hosting the following event " Birthday Cake and "A Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus"

University of St. Thomas, 3800 Montrose, Houston, Texas

Thursday, February 12, 2009, 12:30 pm, 3:35 pm. and 5:00 pm

Birthday Celebration: The Biology Department and the Biology Honor Society, Tri-Beta, at the University of St. Thomas will be celebrating with a Darwin Birthday Cake and refreshments from 12:30pm to 1:30pm on 12 February 2009 in front of Anderson Hall. From 5:00pm to 6:30pm on the same day we will be screening "A Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus" in Anderson Hall 103. Additionally, the Evolutionary Psychology class will be showing film clips from the PBS series entitled "Evolution: Learning and Teaching Evolution," in Strake 107 beginning at 3:35pm. The entire event is to commemorate and celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On the Origin of Species”. All are invited.



For more information, contact Prof. Don Frohlich, These events are sponsored by the Tri-Beta Honor Society and the Biology and Psychology Departments at the University of St. Thomas.





AND



George V. Coyne, S.J., Vatican Observatory

“The Dance of the Fertile Universe: Evolution or Intelligent Design?”

Houston Museum of Natural Science, One Hermann Circle Drive, Houston, Texas

Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 6:30 pm

Did we come about by chance or by necessity in the evolving universe? The first thing to be said is that the problem is not formulated correctly. It is not just a question of chance or necessity because, first of all, it is both. Furthermore, there is a third element here that is very important. It is what I call the "fertility" of the universe. This is the dance of the fertile universe, a ballet with three ballerinas: chance, necessity and fertility. What this means is that the universe is so fertile in offering the opportunity for the success of both chance and necessary processes that such a character of the universe must be included in the search for our origins in the universe. In this light I am going to try to present in broad strokes what I think is some of the best of our modern scientific understanding of the universe, and then ask the question at the end: Can we conclude that there is an Intelligent Design to the universe? Fr. George Coyne is director emeritus of the Vatican Observatory in Tucson, Arizona where he was director for over 25 years.



This lecture is co-sponsored by Houston Museum of Natural Science, Darwin2009 Houston, Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies with media sponsorship provided by KUHF 88.7FM.



Sigh.....



So many athiests...so little brains....

Answer 8

Although most scientists throughout history have been Catholic the Catholic Church has never claimed to be a scientific organization but an organization of faith in Jesus Christ. God bless!



In Christ

Fr. Joseph

Answer 9

Yeah right, the Catholic Church's interpretations of its own book are wrong, but the hundreds of conflicting interpretations of unauthorized manmade denominations, which exist in open contempt for the plainly stated will of God "that they all may be ONE", are all correct. LOL The Catholic Church has no conflict with any scientific discovery. It doesn't have to. Its teachings are true, and truth cannot confclit with truth.

Answer 10

they don't deny evolution, or the big bang, or any science really



in fact, about the only thing i can think of is they claim that at communion time the bread turns to Jesus' flesh...though they acknowledge it doesn't change appearance



but, that's about all







EDIT

Do you mean current? Or in the past? Because none of their current claims really contradict any science.



btw

Catholics don't believe the bible is literal. Catholics don't even have to believe the god flooded the earth for 40 days...it's perfectly acceptable for them to think that maybe the flood was just a regional or local flood.

Answer 11

>>Official church stances<<



None. The Catholic Church teaches faith and morals, not science.



EDIT: Oh, really, Giz? Where is that in the Catechism?

Answer 12

HAHA I have to laugh at the people answering with "flat earth", especially the guy who said he majored in Religious study.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth



It was never a stance, but they held, along with the rest of the scientific community, geocentrism.

Answer 13

Everything IAMACATHOLIC was completely true



but MISLEADING in that it does not give the entire story.



The heirarchy of the Catholic Church, although not as fanatical as today's Fundamantalists who claim that the Bible MUST be taken as LITERALLY true, they have in the past made many erroneous claims based on erroneous Biblical and Natural Law claims and interpretations.



Here are just a few:

1) Until the 20 th century the Catholic Church taught the geocentric view of the universe and had been dominant since the time of Aristotle, and the controversy engendered by Galileo's presentation of heliocentrism as proven fact resulted in the Catholic Church's prohibiting its advocacy as empirically proven fact, because it was not empirically proven at the time and was contrary to the literal meaning of Scripture. Galileo was eventually forced to recant his heliocentrism and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition. The Church did not admit they were wrong until very recently.



Heresy trials were not infrequent in medieval times. They became much rarer after the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century. The Roman Catholic Church convened the council in order to definitively determine its doctrines in the face of Protestant challenges.

In 1431, Joan of Arc -- who had led France to military victory against the English -- was convicted of heresy and sorcery and burned at the stake. She was canonized in 1920.

In 16th-century France, secular courts punished Protestants for heresy under laws governing treason and sedition. Punishments included a range of torture techniques -- such as whippings and the cutting out of the tongue -- as well as death by burning or strangulation.

One of the best-known heresy trials carried out by the Catholic church was the 1633 case against Galileo. The church found Galileo guilty of heresy for teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun; it forced him to recant his views. Galileo was ordered imprisoned, but his sentence was later commuted to lifelong house arrest. Publication of Galileo's work was also forbidden.

Among other famous heretics is Jan Hus. Born in the late 12th century in Husinec, Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), Hus was a religious thinker and reformer whose challenges to Catholic doctrine included a questioning of the existence of purgatory and a rejection of confession. He was excommunicated in 1411, condemned by the Council of Constance, which acted as a court of Inquisition, and burned at the stake in Germany in 1415. His followers were called Hussites, and the movement he started is considered a precursor to Protestanism.



For much more information about the Inquisitions of the Catholic church and their punishment and executions of heretics see:

http://galileo.rice.edu/chr/inquisition....



2) For the first 1000 years of its existence the Catholic Church taught that loaning of money charging interest was immoral.



3) Not until 1890 did the Catholic church FINALLY unequivocably admit that the Institution of slavery was immoral.

In fact, the Ninth Council of Todelo (655 AD) declared that children of clerics were to be enslaved in an effort to enforce clerical celibacy. This was soon put into Canon Law.

In 1866 the Vatican made the following statement: "Slavery itself . . . is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law. . ."



4) Not until 1964 did the Catholic church finally admit the Democracy MAY be a legitimate form of government but only so long as the people vote for laws which supports the Church's view of morality. As late as 1960, Pope Pius XII was the first pope in 1953 to finally admit that in "some" circumstances democracy may be acceptable. But not until the Vatican Council II was this formally stated. Freedom of religion was not accepted until 1964. But again with "conditions"



5) Sexual moral codes also underwent great changes over the centuries. At one time (before the late 1700s) the Catholic Church maintained that EVERY sexual activity between married people MUST have as its purpose procreation. Today this is now modified to state that all sex acts must be coital ONLY in form and not in intent and not use artificial birth control measures.



6) LYING used to be defined by the Church as any deliberate departure from the truth. But in the eary 20th century it was gradually understood that in certain circumstances that lying was not immoral if the person did not have a right to this "truth" like a prisoner of war being interrogated. BUT it was not until 1994 edition of the Catechism: to lie isdefined as “to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has a right to know the truth.”

However, the now current Pope, had this CHANGED BACK in the 1997 edition sed in the 1997 by eliminating the words, “who has a right to know the truth” Thus as of now to lie under ANY circumstances the Catholic Church states this to be a sin and an immoral act.



T

Answer 14

How exactly was the church founded on a fallacy?

Answer 15

I can't think of any that they have been proven "scientifically" wrong about. They're not like the Mormon's who claim this whole book of history and archeology that nothing has been proven from and much has been disproven. The catholic church's error lies more in contradicitons to sound biblical teaching.

Answer 16

Galileo was nearly burned as a heretic for stating that the world was round, not flat as previously believed.



He also stated that the planets revolved around the sun, not the earth, contrary to church teachings.

Answer 17

They once insisted that the earth was the center of the solar system and put Galileo under house arrest.

Answer 18

the dictionary has a wonderful definition of "fact" maybe you should look it up.

Answer 19

i think the biggest one would have to be the virgin birth. human parthenogenesis hasnt been proven yet but it is something it could be done, however the offspring will always be female. so unless jesus was a female, mary wasnt a virgin. or you could just say that outside the bible there is no credible evidence for jesus being real.

Answer 20

IF you don't have any examples already then your question is, Have any stances...wrong ? NOT What stances...wrong ?



Just a matter of diction and logic.

Answer 21

They said the world was flat

They said that the universe revolved around the earth

They say the Freemasons are devil worshipers, we're not



There are many more

Answer 22

Their bible attempts to have you believe on page one that the earth was created before the sun and stars, as if the earth were the center of the universe....ans as if the sun were created to light and warm the earth, which we know is not true...

Answer 23

Do you mean stances they used to hold but no longer do, or those that they currently hold?

Answer 24

Every one. They banned ideas from the worlds greatest thinkers like Galileo.

Answer 25

Catholics currently teach the lie that the AIDS virus can pass through condoms.



Giz

Answer 26

Well there was always that spat with Galileo and his crazy ideas about heliocentrism.

Answer 27

They denied Evolution, now they accept it. The pope declared the world was flat, now they don't. The pope was supposed to be infaible while sitting on the throne, they've given that up. The first leader of Christians was James brother of Jesus historically, as opposed to the belief peter was Jesus' chosen successor. etc. They say marry remained a virgin her entire life, again we have both historical/empirical evidence as well as biblical evidence that Jesus had siblings (more accurately half siblings) including brothers and sisters.



Also, on purely a spiritual note, they just got rid of limbo in their dogma. They're rearranging the afterlife to be more popular. And the previous pope was the first ever to apologize to the eastern world for the crusades, prostrateing himself in front of the Orthodox church leaders. A possitive step from the catholics old saying 'Kill them all and let god sort out his own'.



And 'no fixed address', is just plain ignorant. Go get yourself an education.

Answer 28

earth is flat

can't go more than 60 miles an hour

earth revolves around the sun

surgery is playing god

evolution

people can become possessed by demons

Answer 29

Last time I checked, they thought the earth was roughly 6000 years old.

Infallacy (I think I spelled it right, means we never do anything wrong)-crusades

oh, and noah's ark (there is no evidence to show the earth was flooded for 40 days and nights)

Answer 30

Mary was a virgin. Mary ascended into Heaven before death.

Answer 31

That the virgin Mary didn't have any more children after Jesus..

Answer 32

why not start with the resurection

Answer 33

breads turn into jesus fleash? what the hell are they? cannibals o,o