Apropos the ongoing discussion here; the full text should still be
available via the NY Times web site.
-L.D.
-------
The New York Times
July 9, 2005
Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution
By CORNELIA DEAN and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
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 Schoenborn, 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 Schoenborn.
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.
[...]
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 Schoenborn'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 Schoenborn 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.
[...]
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