Rome Said Fine

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Isn’t it fascinating how there’s a gap between what people assume an institution believes, and what it actually believes. The Catholic Church’s position on evolution is one of those gaps.

As a kid, I went to a Catholic Church primary school. I can’t complain really, sure we prayed 3 times a day (which I thought was a bit much), but I enjoyed my time there, the education was top notch, and the nuns ran a tight ship. Just to be clear, I’m not Catholic, that’s just where I ended up.

The Catholic Church made peace with Darwinian evolution decades ago, but a surprising number of people apparently missed the memo. I grew up in this system, and even I didn’t know they’d accepted evolution while I was out there trying to grasp the concept of the holy trinity.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII said evolutionary theory could be studied and discussed within the Church. It wasn’t a full endorsement, but it opened the door. Then in 1996, John Paul II described evolution as “more than a hypothesis,” and accepted that scientific consensus was compatible with Catholic teaching.

That’s their version of ‘…yeah alright, fair enough.’

In accepting evolution, the Vatican did something very modern, but they did it in the most Vatican way: quiet, restrained, and under the radar. Like that one kid in school who got accepted into the Liverpool FC academy and didn’t say a word to anyone.

Which is how you end up with situations where people defend an institution, but they don't know what the institution believes. You have Catholics arguing against evolution, while Rome is essentially saying ‘…what’s all the fussing for’.

But in fairness, this isn’t really a Catholic problem. People do this with everything. Once we’ve decided what a person, company or institution believes, we don’t exactly rush back every few years to check whether they’ve changed their mind.

Sometimes we’re defending something we were told in childhood, long after the institution itself has moved on.

The institution changed, but the defenders didn’t install the update.

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