via Media Distort Catholic View on Evolution
After Pope Francis referenced the Big Bang and biological evolution this past Monday, a flurry of media reports appeared, contrasting Francis’ views with those of his predecessors and the Catholic tradition.
“Pope Francis made a significant rhetorical break with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real,” gushed MSNBC. And elsewhere, MSNBC reported that “conservatives in the United States” who have been unhappy with Pope Francis “today have one more reason to be upset.”
Yet the real story here is that Francis was just reiterating the Catholic understanding of evolution first articulated by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
Had the journalists dug a little deeper, they would have discovered that the “father of the Big Bang theory,” Georges Lemaître, was a Belgian cosmologist and a Catholic priest. He was also a former president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the very group Francis was addressing Monday.
The Catholic Catechism itself states that the “question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man.” It also notes that these discoveries “invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers.”
But it seems that these journalists really just wanted to drive a wedge between Francis and his immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, holding the former up as a free-wheeling liberal and tarring the second as a stodgy conservative.
via Media Distort Catholic View on Evolution,
The theories of evolution and the big bang are not inconsistent with the biblical creation story, according to the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
God is not “a magician with a magic wand” says Pope Francis while speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Tuesday.
“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said. “He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.
The Pontiff continued:
“The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it. Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.” continued here
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Elizabeth Scalia / the Anchoress – First things:
“And I started thinking about the refugees who make the dangerous trip from Africa to Italy, and for whom Pope Francis has great compassion and concern. Malta is part of the migrant route.
And then I started thinking about how Malta has said it feels overwhelmed by immigrants. Just yesterday, there were reports that as many as 500 people had perished off the coast of Malta.
And then I thought: Burke is only 66 years old — he has a lot of energy left in him, and is very organized — and by all accounts he is a stickler of an obedientiary.
It would not at all surprise me to discover that Pope Francis, seeking to find a way to give assistance to people risking their lives to escape a troubled continent, has deliberately put along their route a youngish churchman with a humanitarian “military order” under his patronage, and a gift for putting things together.
In fact, this seems like exactly the thing Francis would do: align an obedient, faithful Cardinal who enjoys a bit of ceremony from time to time with a well-organized Knighthood able to offer medical and emergency help, and who also rather like getting spiffed up from time to time, and put them to work, together, for the good of the countless numbers of people, and ultimately for the good of the church.
I suppose if one buys into the worldly take on what constitutes a prestigious office, one might say “yes, this is a demotion! From the Curia, the seats of Power, and making episcopal recommendations to the little island of Malta**, and the Knights?”
But the whole world is in the midst of great crisis, and the church — this great centering pole which keeps everything from collapsing and lets in the light — must respond, wherever she can, and do it quickly and authoritatively, because nations are failing, as they do, and people are suffering, and darkness is encroaching, all about.
I think Francis has given Cardinal Burke a great challenge, a great privilege, and a mighty task: to sustain and further build up an organization that serves people-in-need around the world, regardless of race, creed, nationality; to shore up good-and-welfare networks that have become stagnant; to assist immigrants and nations as the world continues its transition into something different from what it has been. And to — why not, if he wants? — wrap all of these efforts in occasional pageants of great beauty and solemn worship, because beauty feeds the heart and soul, and it doesn’t belong to only some, but to all.”
via Burke’s “Exile” to Malta**: What if Everyone is Wrong? UPDATED.
Pope Francis said: “There is much that we can do to benefit the poor, the needy and those who suffer, and to favor justice, promote reconciliation and build peace. But before all else we need to keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person, a vision which reduces human beings to what they produce and to what they consume: this is one of the most insidious temptations of our time.”
Joann Nelander Studio 