Weekend reading: The Solemn Enthronement of Evolution in the Church

Boniface at Unam Sanctam Catholicam hits one out of the park with this lengthy examination on how Church leadership over the past century and a half have radically changed the Church’s public position regarding the theory of the evolution of species.  He goes through the history of the, uh…….evolution of the Church’s position regarding Darwinian evolution, and shows how initial hostility and denunciations have morphed into not just acceptance, but seeming endorsements that there is nothing in the theory of evolution that is counter to Scripture or Tradition.

This is a very troubling position to take, as so much error spins out from acceptance of evolution that it is one of the more common ways people fall away from the Faith.  But Boniface shows, in a very well researched and supported piece, that Church leadership, especially since Vatican II, has all but enthroned the theory of evolution as some kind of scientific doctrine of the Faith.  The piece is lengthy, but very much worth your time.  It should make excellent reading.

Some brief excerpts from the beginning and end of the piece (I add comments, emphasis):

While it is an established point of our faith that the Church cannot change teachings that have been definitively proposed to the faithful for belief, the about-face the Catholic Church has done on the question of evolution since the mid-19th century is nothing short of revolutionary – revolutionary in the most literal sense of the word, “to turn around”, for the Church has done just that, turned around on its approach to evolution and questions surrounding the origin of human life. In this article, we will trace the origins of the Church’s interaction with evolutionary theology and witness how, while the papacy of the 19th century condemned evolution as incompatible with Christian theology, the late 20th century Magisterium has essentially enthroned the theory as a permanent fixture of Catholic thought. The two most influential theologians behind this enthronement were none other than Teilhard de Chardin and Joseph Ratzinger. [I was certainly aware of the former’s role in creating a heretical vision of Catholicism that was subordinate to the theory of evolution in every regard. In fact, much of the modernist heresy grew out of attempts to reconcile Catholicism with Darwinian evolution, with the evolution always predominate. But I was quite unaware of Joseph Ratzinger’s involvement in this whole process, and that part of the study was most eye-opening.  Reading this was akin to me to seeing photos of Pope Saint John Paul II kissing the koran.]

Now, from the conclusion:

Meanwhile the modern Magisterium has continued to promote evolution as a viable cosmology and speaks out against attempts to return to the traditional understanding of creation.[And that latter bit is even more significant than the former.  It is yet another indication of the new religion unleashed in the past few decades]  John Paul II’s words to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in which he remarked that evolution “is more than a hypothesis”, are well known [33]. In 2005, the chief Vatican astronomer Fr. George Coyne said that  “If [Catholics] respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God” and stated that attempts to discern design in the created order are “not science” [34]. So much for St. Paul’s teaching in Romans 1 that the Creator can be discerned from the creation! Cardinal Schönborn also enthusiastically endorses evolution – and not only evolution, but Darwinian evolution: “Without a doubt, Darwin pulled off quite a feat with his main work and it remains one of the very great works of intellectual history. I see no problem combining belief in the Creator with the theory of evolution” [35]. This should come as no surprise, considering the Cardinal’s gushing appraisal of the work of Teilhard.

Essentially, what we have witnessed is nothing other than the solemn enthronement of evolution as a viable explanation for the origins of humanity. Although the last official pronouncement on the matter remains Pius XII’s Humani Generis, few Catholic theologians today are willing to admit the existence of a literal Adam and Eve, and most have not worked out how this can work with the Church’s doctrine of original sin.[Indeed, if Genesis 1-3 are simply mythology, then the entire economy of salvation falls apart, or becomes, at best, a sort of symbolic, ethereal spiritualism without concrete reality.  Acceptance of evolution leads, almost invariably, to denial of the Incarnation of God]  Those who have tried to formulate a resolution have, like Ratzinger, tried to inject more evolutionary theory into the Faith to solve the problems posed by evolutionary theory, such as advocating polygenism or novel understandings of original sin. We have also witnessed the theological precision demonstrated by the careful inquiries of the late 1800’s lost as the limits of what is acceptable continue to be pushed by evolutionist theologians. Contrast the 1895 opinion of Fr. Buonpensiere that any attempt to harmonize evolution and creation was damaging to the faith to Cardinal Schönborn’s opinion that there is “no problem” reconciling Darwinism and the Faith, of Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi’s 2009 comment that “The Catholic Church cannot change its teaching when that teaching has been definitively proposed for the faithful. However, in the question of evolution and its theological import, we have seen something very close to a revolution in the past generation – a revolution in support of a theory which Pope St. Pius X predicted would be the “wreck of all religion” [Indeed. One can track the collapse of various protestant sects with the widespread acceptance within those sects of Darwinian evolution, and find that there is a very close correlation between the two.  But we’re so much more sophisticated now!  That’s why our churches and seminaries and religious houses are full to overflowing!  And it’s such a gorgeous spring!]

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My thanks to Boniface for taking the time to write this most illuminating manuscript.  Please check out the entire Unam Sanctam Catholicam site, it is a treasure of catechesis and traditional formation.

My Lord, do we have so very much to pray for.