If the Pope supported evolution?

Question

If the Vatican came out in support of evolution what would be the reaction among Christians???

An analogous situation would be when the sun was shown not to revolve around Earth, and the Vatican denied for awhile but then had to come to terms with it.

i know that some people in the vatican are warm to evolution, but this pope doesn't believe it.

i'm taking about the origins of humans v. the story of creation

I never watch the view

I wasn't separating protestants from catholics... my mistake but in the end i think both would be affected.

although the bible doesn't say that the sun went around the earth, it also doesn't say evolution does not exist. i'm talking about the fury that was present when astronomers first started saying the earth goes around the sun

Answer 1

The Vatican acknowledged evolution 57 years ago.

The Catholic Church does not take the stories of creation in the Bible literally. Catholics believe the book of Genesis tells religious truth and not necessarily historical fact.

One of the religious truths is that God created everything and declared all was good.

Catholics can believe in the theories of the big bang and/or evolution. Or not.

On August 12, 1950 Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Humani generis:

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, on the part of men experienced in both fields, 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 - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.

Here is the complete encyclical: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html

The Church supports science in the discovery of God's creation. At this time, the theories of the big bang and evolution are the most logical scientific explanations. However tomorrow someone may come up with better ideas.

As long as we believe that God started the whole thing, both the Bible and modern science can live in harmony.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

each pope on account that Pius IX has in many circumstances occurring evolutionary concept (and doubtless formerly popes did too). John Paul II famously stated that evolution by way of organic determination became 'extra suitable than basically a hypothesis'. the seen 'ensoulment' is that guy's physique evolves from the animals, yet there's a 2d whilst God can provide a soul - and the animal ceases to be an animal, and could become a man or woman. guy stocks his physique with the animals, yet his soul is a present day immediately from God. that isn't any longer a confusing thought. .... The pope knows that Creationism is especially an Islamic thought, which has infiltrated some corners of Christianity below the impact of Muslim Imams. (maximum US Creationists paintings from Harun Yahya's Atlas of advent - a textbook by way of a Muslim cleric). some - especially US-based - 'Christians' instruct that Christianity desires to settle for Islamic recommendations (which include Creationism). The pope isn't one in all those. ..... The Catholic Church has on no account censured evolutionary concept (no paintings of Charles Darwin ever appeared on the Index of Forbidden Books). Methodists and Anglicans additionally explicitly recommend the thought. Evolution is the Christian know-how of the advent tale. Creationism is the Muslim know-how of the advent tale. it truly is that easy.

Answer 3

Look up the bio of Copernicus some time. It might surprise you to find that the Pope/Vatican did NOT oppose his teachings. Being a strong Catholic, before he publishes his theories, Copernicus took his manuscript to Roman and asked to have it inspected by the Pope.

The Pope meet with him, reviewed the book, looked through the telescope, and gave Copernicus his blessing with one request. He ask to add a three page letter to the appendix of the book in which he gave arguements on how this discovery did not disprove the Bible or the Christian faith. Copernicus agreed to add the pages.

However, when the book first appeared, the pages were not there. If you read the book, it is not a science text book. Rather it has a series of characters sitting around and discussing the idea of how the sun moves and its implication. Copernicus had taken the Pope's words and assigned them to one of the characters, actually including them into the main text of the book itself.

Unfortuantely the character that spoke the lines with the "fool" the book.

Needless to say, the Pope was unhappy to have his agreement with Copernicus broken, and what were suppose to be a Papal writ assigned to a fool. If an author today were to do the same thing, he would probably find himself being charged with breach of contract.

So the local judge (not the church) placed Copernicus under house arrest, demanding that the passage to restored to the appendix as originally agreed. As their disagreement was about the book, and not the discovery, the judge refused to look at the evidence for the discovery or to look through the telescope. It had no bearing on the dispute.

When he refused to restore the passages, it was then the local priest attempted to charge him with blashemy over the theory itself, and he was forced to rechant the theory. Please note that he was NOT burned at the stake or anything else. He did not ever serve time in prison. He was under house arrest for about four months to prevent him leaving town until the dispute over the book was settled, but that was all.

There is no history record of ANYONE begin tortured, burned, imprisoned, etc. for their belief in this area.

In the end, the book was published with the appendix in it by the Pope SUPPORTING Copernicus theory and arguing that it did not contrdict the Bible as the Bible did not teach that the sun moved around the earth. You can read it for youself if you want to pay a visit to your local library.

Answer 4

The Pope has a right to his opinion, which has nothing to do with religion. I'm not Catholic but I respect the Pope and his opinions but if he supported evolution then I would say he was wrong on that issue.

Btw, 99.99999% of all people believed the sun revolved around the earth at one time. And if you lived back then you would have to, surely, how would you have known otherwise?
Right now the only reason you know is because someone else told you.

Answer 5

Pope John Paul II already did say some things in favor of evolution. "Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis"

There's also an excellent reflection in the Vatican International Theological Commission's 2004 document "Communion and Stewardship: Human persons created in the image of God"
"Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. "

Only Catholics more influenced by Evangelical Protestantism's hostility to evolution make much of a fuss about these statements, if they even know they exist. Non-Catholic Christians don't much care what the pope says, anyway.

Even Darwin was never placed on the index of forbidden books back when the index still existed, and 19th century theologian John Henry Cardinal Newman outlined a theory of doctrinal development("evolution" in a certain sense) before Darwin made his name. Though there are certain materialistic tendencies inimical to Christianity in lots of Darwinistic writings, the fact of common ancestry and descent with modification are not necessarily hostile to Christian faith.

Also, the Galileo controversy had a lot more to do with counterreformation paranoia and ecclesiastical and academic politics than a dogmatic commitment to a geocentric universe. Christian cosmology survived, and indeed flourished, after the supplanting of literalistic Old Testament "flat earth" cosmology with a more sophisticated Greek view in early centuries of Christianity.

Answer 6

In Catholicism, intelligent design is the most accepted theory, although as a Catholic Christian, one can accept theistic evolution or creationism or any other -ism regarding the beginning of things, as long as God is considered the Creator and Fashioner of all things. The Bible is not to be considered strictly literal and many things can be interpreted metaphorically, allegorically or spiritually (the Book of Jonah, for example).

Intelligent design is the theory that since all things are so complex, there must be a creative being, force or essence, basically a higher intelligence that created them. A watchmaker is, for example, much more intelligent than with the watch itself.

If the Pope supported evolutionism, it would be a modified theistic evolutionism that he would promote.

Answer 7

If what you say were to take place, I would simply realize (as I've always known right along) that this man who claims such high authority is merely a man and fallible, and susceptible to mistakes like anybody else on the face of this planet.

The Bible never says that the earth revolves around the sun.

If you quote where the sun stood still, then I guess it's wrong to say that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

I guess it's also wrong to say a watched pot never boils.

These are just idioms, expressions. I don't know about the vatican; after all, it's only a human invention. But I DO know what the Bible says because it is from God.

Answer 8

the vatican may support some aspects of evolution but they will never come out and say humans evolved from lesser creatures.

it would be bad for business

btw, if they did, many protestants and catholics would ignore, but many would start to accept. in fact more and more of both do it all the time. it's inevitable, just like the earth and the sun

Answer 9

The problem in your statement is that the Pope does not or has ever denied evolution, it is not a Catholic principle or train of thought.
The Catholic Church believes that the story of Adam and Eve is just that a story in which the truth lies in the origination of Sin, the loss of Grace and how the love of God still permeated through His mercy, in letting them live on with free will so that one day we might choose for ourselves what is right and wrong.

Answer 10

The vatican and pope DO admit that evolution is a fact!!! He even points to America and Germany as the two major problem areas that need to come to grips with reality.
BAM!!!
Christians just don't care!! They don't like to stop fighting, plus, the pope is the leader of catholics only, others don't follow what he says too closely.
Don't come to the conclusion that the rest of the world is as religiously anti-science as America. We're at the forefront of backwoods religious snake handling quackery.
Somehow America has become the backwards religious cooks. No longer leading the world in really much of anything.
Maybe if we pray really really hard?