Vatican hosts Darwin conference

Vatican hosts Darwin conference

The Vatican is sponsoring a five day conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.

The subject is the compatibility of evolution and creation.

It is one of two separate international academic conferences being sponsored by the Vatican this year.

They aim to re-examine the work of scientific thinkers whose revolutionary ideas challenged religious belief: Galileo and Charles Darwin.

Scientists, philosophers and theologians from around the world are gathering at the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome to discuss the compatibility of Darwin's theory of evolution and Catholic teaching.

Christian churches were long hostile to Darwin because his theory conflicted with the literal biblical account of creation.

But the Catholic Church never condemned Darwin, as it condemned and silenced Galileo.

Pope John Paul II said that evolution was "more than a hypothesis".

Yet as recently as 2006 a leading Catholic Cardinal, Christoff Schoenborn, of Vienna, a former student and friend of Pope Benedict XVI caused controversy by saying that Darwin's theory of natural selection was incompatible with Christian belief.

A leading American scholar of biology, Prof Francisco Ayala, plans to tell the conference that the so-called theory of intelligent design, proposed by Creationists, is flawed.

"The design of organisms is not what would be expected from an intelligent engineer, but imperfect and worse," he said.

"Defects, dysfunctions, oddities, waste and cruelty pervade the living world".

^^This is very intersting. My college, which is very very Catholic, just finished hosting a series of events and lectures about Darwin and his theories. I'm glad that the Catholic church is open to exploring this further, unlike other denominations that flat out refuse to even consider it.

Fun fact: It was a Catholic priest who first proposed the Big Bang, Einstein didn't believe him, checked his numbers and the priest was right...

Yes, this is why I dislike Benedict so much. If it was for him, Vatican II never happened nor any other pope after Pius XII, removing Fr. Coyne who is one of the most ardent opponents of Intelligent Design inside Catholic Church saying that "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science." and bringing back Bishop Williamson and the Latin Mass... God...

Personally, as a Catholic, I think we need more Mertons, Lemaitres, Coynes and Romeros and less Williamsons, Ngô Đình Thụcs and Laws as clergy.