Leading Cardinal
Redefines Church's
View on Evolution
By CORNELIA DEAN and
LAURIE GOODSTEIN, from the NYTimes on the Web, July 9, 2005
An influential cardinal in the Roman
Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of
evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science
today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.
The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is
close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The
New York Times on Thursday, writing, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry
might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense -- an unguided,
unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not."
In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat,
the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that
two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI's election in April, he spoke with
the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church's position on
evolution. "I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about
that, and he encouraged me to go on," said Cardinal Schönborn.
He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many
Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing
the idea of evolution as a random process.
Opponents of Darwinian evolution said they were gratified by Cardinal
Schönborn's essay. But scientists and science teachers reacted with
confusion, dismay and even anger. Some said they feared the cardinal's
sentiments would cause religious scientists to question their faiths.
Cardinal Schönborn, who is on the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education,
said the office had no plans to issue new guidance to teachers in Catholic
schools on evolution. But he said he believed students in Catholic
schools, and all schools, should be taught that evolution is just one of many
theories. Many Catholic schools teach Darwinian evolution, in which
accidental mutation and natural selection of the fittest organisms drive the
history of life, as part of their science curriculum.
Darwinian evolution is the foundation of modern biology. While researchers
may debate details of how the mechanism of evolution plays out, there is no
credible scientific challenge to the underlying theory.
American Catholics and conservative evangelical Christians have been a potent
united front in opposing abortion, stem cell research and euthanasia, but had
parted company on the death penalty and the teaching of evolution.
Cardinal Schönborn's essay and comments are an indication that the church may
now enter the debate over evolution more forcefully on the side of those who
oppose the teaching of evolution alone.
One of the strongest advocates of teaching alternatives to evolution is the
Discovery Institute in Seattle, which promotes the idea, termed intelligent
design, that the variety and complexity of life on earth cannot be explained
except through the intervention of a designer of some sort.
Mark Ryland, a vice president of the institute, said in an interview that he had
urged the cardinal to write the essay. Both Mr. Ryland and Cardinal
Schönborn said that an essay in May in The Times about the compatibility of
religion and evolutionary theory by Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case
Western Reserve University in Cleveland, suggested to them that it was time to
clarify the church's position on evolution.
The cardinal's essay, a direct response to Dr. Krauss's article, was submitted
to The Times by a Virginia public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts,
which also represents the Discovery Institute.
Mr. Ryland, who said he knew the cardinal through the International Theological
Institute in Gaming, Austria, where he is chancellor and Mr. Ryland is on the
board, said supporters of intelligent design were "very excited" that a church
leader had taken a position opposing Darwinian evolution. "It clarified
that in some sense the Catholics aren't fine with it," he said.
Bruce Chapman, the institute's president, said the cardinal's essay "helps blunt
the claims" that the church "has spoken on Darwinian evolution in a way that's
supportive."
But some biologists and others said they read the essay as abandoning
longstanding church support for evolutionary biology.
"How did the Discovery Institute talking points wind up in Vienna?" wondered
Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education,
which advocates the teaching of evolution. "It really did look quite a bit
as if Cardinal Schönborn had been reading their Web pages."
Mr. Ryland said the cardinal was well versed on these issues and had written the
essay on his own.
Dr. Francis Collins, who headed the official American effort to decipher the
human genome, and who describes himself as a Christian, though not a Catholic,
said Cardinal Schönborn's essay looked like "a step in the wrong direction" and
said he feared that it "may represent some backpedaling from what scientifically
is a very compelling conclusion, especially now that we have the ability to
study DNA."
"There is a deep and growing chasm between the scientific and the spiritual
world views," he went on. "To the extent that the cardinal's essay makes
believing scientists less and less comfortable inhabiting the middle ground, it
is unfortunate. It makes me uneasy."
"Unguided," "unplanned," "random" and "natural" are all adjectives that
biologists might apply to the process of evolution, said Dr. Kenneth R. Miller,
a professor of biology at Brown and a Catholic. But even so, he said,
evolution "can fall within God's providential plan." He added:
"Science cannot rule it out. Science cannot speak on this."
Dr. Miller, whose book "Finding Darwin's God" describes his reconciliation of
evolutionary theory with Christian faith, said the essay seems to equate belief
in evolution with disbelief in God. That is alarming, he said. "It
may have the effect of convincing Catholics that evolution is something they
should reject."
Dr. Collins and other scientists said they could understand why a cleric might
want to make the case that, as Dr. Collins put it, "evolution is the mechanism
by which human beings came into existence, but God had something to do with
that, too." Dr. Collins said that view, theistic evolution, "is shared
with a very large number of biologists who also believe in God, including me."
But it does not encompass the idea that the workings of evolution required the
direct intervention of a supernatural agent, as intelligent design would have
it.
In his essay, Cardinal Schönborn asserted that he was not trying to break new
ground but to correct the idea, "often invoked," that the church accepts or at
least acquiesces to the theory of evolution.
He referred to widely cited remarks by Pope John Paul II, who, in a 1996 address
to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, noted that the scientific case for
evolution was growing stronger and that the theory was "more than a hypothesis."
In December, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, chairman of the Committee on Science
and Human Values of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, cited
those remarks in writing to the nation's bishops that "the Church does not need
to fear the teaching of evolution as long as it is understood as a scientific
account of the physical origins and development of the universe." But in
his essay, Cardinal Schönborn dismissed John Paul's statement as "rather vague
and unimportant."
Francisco Ayala, a professor of biology at the University of California, Irvine,
and a former Dominican priest, called this assessment "an insult" to the late
pope. and said the cardinal seemed to be drawing a line between the theory of
evolution and religious faith, and "seeing a conflict that does not exist."
Dr. Miller said he was already hearing from people worried about the cardinal's
essay. "People are saying, does the church really believe this?" He
said he would not speculate. "John Paul II made it very clear that he
regarded scientific rationality as a gift from God," Dr. Miller said, adding,
"There are more than 100 cardinals and they often have conflicting opinions."
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