Is it true Catholics now believe in biological evolution?

Question

Now that the Pope has accepted evolution as the means by which we became human, that means the Catholic Church as a whole accepts it, right? So therefore all 1 billion Catholics accept evolution over Genesis. Is that right?
[I know it was two popes ago, but I understand he was infallible].

Answer 1

If they do accept the massive evidence for evolution they call it theistic evolution. Their problem is evolution is a completely natural process. Like any other natural process evolution does not need a magical being to invent, use, or guide it. People who call themselves theistic evolutionists are really evolution deniers, about equal to the bible thumping creationists because they invoke a magical creator.

Answer 2

It's true that the pope said there were certain aspects of biological evolution that are not contratry to Catholic teaching. It's NOT accepting evolution over Genesis.



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).



Do you understand what papal infalliblity is? It's NOT that the pope can never be wrong. What the Church is saying with the doctrine of infallibly is that Christ is protecting his flock by giving the Pope the ability to say the right things when making official statements about faith and morals. The Church claims that these proclamations are "infallible," not that Church leaders are "indefectible."

Answer 3

Yes. That has been the case for a long time. In the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII confirmed that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, provided that Christians believe that the individual soul is a direct creation by God and not the product of purely material forces.



It was a Catholic priest that also formulated the theory of the Big Bang, which is also accepted by the Catholic Church.

Answer 4

I attended a Catholic college back in the 1960s. Like the 1300 or so Catholic institutions around the world they taught Evolution by Natural Selection.



My Biology lecturer was a Benedictine Monk.



Only fundamentalist Christians deny Evolution.

Answer 5

The Catholic church does not quite teach that evolution is true. It teaches that an acceptance of evolution does not conflict with any point of dogma, and so any individual who finds the evidence for evolution compelling is free to accept it as true. In practice, this means that the vast majority of Catholics do believe in evolution.



But the Catholic church still teaches that there was (in some way) an Adam and Eve - a first man and a first woman, to whom all subsequent generations are related. The church also teaches that there was an original sin. These things may not have hapened in the litteral way that Genesis describes, because Genesis was written as mythology, not as history. But they did happen.



This approach reflects the general Catholic approach to science and human reason. The natural world is knowable, and God has given us the mental ability to study and know it. So a proper application of science can reveal natural truths, and cannot conflict with a proper understanding of scripture.



My own speculation on this matter is that Adam and Eve were the first people in whom God implanted fully human souls, with the potential to know good and evil. Before that time, there may have been beings who were biologically human, but not spiritually so. When and where this ensoulment happened, I do not know - but I would think that it must have happened either in a very small and isolated population - the sort of thing which evolutionary biologists refer to as a 'population bottleneck'.

Answer 6

No. There are Catholic groups and many evangelical Catholics, such as many charismatic groups, who disagree. My best friend, a charismatic Catholic, does not believe in evolution. The Pope is supposedly infallible only on Christian doctrine, she tells me. Regardless, my friend puts more faith in the Bible than the Popes, not to say she doesn't respect the Pope, as she does.

Answer 7

Some Catholics believe in evolution, however you have to realize that humans are incredibly stubborn and resistant to change. So there's still a great deal of Catholics who proclaim it as heresy. Ironically enough I doubt that they'd even know about that pope in particular.

Answer 8

Not necessarily all of them....the Catholic Church has formally accepted the notion or teaching of Theistic evolution for some years but only so far as the scientific evidence supports biological evolution /Darwinism and reserves the right to deny Darwinism/evolution in the future if evidence disproves it. They don't want to be at odds with so-called science like the fiasco with Galileo but some in the church have argued against Darwinism and support Biblical creationism. There are a number of Biblical passages which refute Darwinism.....Adam and Eve were the first two people on Earth and did not have any primate ancestors...or natural origins....and animals differ from people in their makeup or flesh...they did not have common ancestors as Darwinism proposes.



And some Catholic scientists/ researchers have proposed that the Church was right all along when it comes to Galileo's work...the Earth is indeed the center of the universe based on numerous interferometry tests dating back to the 1800's..



1 Corinthians 11 NIV

" 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man;"



1 Timothy 2

"13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve."



Matthew 19

"4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?



Genesis 2

"7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."



" 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.



23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’

for she was taken out of man.”



1 Corinthians 15

" 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. "



Catholic creationism website...

http://www.kolbecenter.org/



Galileo was wrong...

"Galileo Was Wrong is a detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe. Garnering scientific information from physics, astrophysics, astronomy and other sciences, Galileo Was Wrong shows that the debate between Galileo and the Catholic Church was much more than a difference of opinion about the interpretation of Scripture.



Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos."

http://www.galileowaswrong.com/galileowaswrong/



Cosmic redshifts.. our galaxy is the center of universe...

http://creation.com/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show



Catholic websites with answers to creation/evolution issues...

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/creation-and-genesis



"Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "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 . . . 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—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.



While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution. "

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution



http://www.catholicbridge.com/catholic/catholic_creationism.php



Former evolutionist/theistic evolutionist...professor and geneticist from Cornell.... Dr John Sanford on genetic entropy which disproves Darwinism....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_edD5HOx6Q0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svKiusYOsNw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efGsUUd2rb8

Answer 9

The Catholic Church has overcorrected itself in a zeal to atone for its 'sin' of convicting Galileo!

Answer 10

It's funny, because evolution completely debunks the Bible. My guess is that the pope simply has not read the Bible.

Answer 11

By "NOW", do you mean "now" as compared to 5 minutes ago?

https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20130321050533AACwvWo