[Paleopsych] Independent: Evolution dispute now set to split Catholic hierarchy

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Evolution dispute now set to split Catholic hierarchy
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article303775.ece

By Michael McCarthy

The conflict at the highest level of the Catholic
Church about the truth of Darwin's theory of
evolution breaks out publicly today.

Recent comments by a cardinal close to the Pope
that random evolution was incompatible with
belief in "God the creator" are fiercely assailed
in today's edition of The Tablet, Britain's
Catholic weekly, by the Vatican astronomer.

In an article with explosive implications for the
Church, Father George Coyne, an American Jesuit
priest who is a distinguished astronomy
professor, attacks head-on the views of Cardinal
Christoph Shönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna and
a long-standing associate of Joseph Ratzinger,
the German cardinal who was elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April.

In an article entitled "Finding Design in Nature"
in The New York Times last month, Cardinal
Shönborn reignited the row between the Church and
science by frankly denying that "neo-Darwinian
dogma" was compatible with Christian faith. He
wrote: "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."

His views have provoked alarm among many
scientists and liberal Catholics around the
world, who thought that Catholicism had come to
terms with evolution, and who now see the spectre
of creationism rising in the Catholic Church as
it has risen among fundamentalist Protestants in the US.

Only this week President George Bush said that
the theory of "intelligent design" - a version of
creationism, which disputes the idea that natural
selection alone can explain the complexity of
life - should be taught in America schools alongside the theory of
evolution.

Cardinal Shönborn is understood to have been
urged to write the article, and to have been
helped to place it in The New York Times, by Mark
Ryland, a leading figure in the Discovery
Institute, a conservative American Christian
think-tank that promotes intelligent design.

The cardinal's views are publicly and robustly
rejected by Fr Coyne, director of the Vatican
Observatory, which is a scientific institution sponsored by the Holy See.

Fr Coyne, who is 72, has been in charge of the
observatory since 1978; he spends half the year
in Tucson, Arizona, as a professor in the
University of Arizona astronomy department, where
he is still actively involved in research.

In The Tablet he says that Cardinal Shönborn's
article has "darkened the waters" of the rapport
between Church and science, and says - flatly
contradicting the cardinal - that even a world in
which "life... has evolved through a process of
random genetic mutations and natural selection"
is compatible with "God's dominion".

For a Vatican official of such seniority openly
to attack the views of a cardinal on such a
potentially explosive subject as evolution is
unprecedented. It also reveals a deep rift at the
heart of the Catholic Church's thinking. It is
known that Fr Coyne wrote privately to both
Cardinal Shönborn and the Pope himself protesting
against The New York Times article soon after it
was published last month. But it is understood
that so many scientists, especially Catholic
scientists, have since contacted him to express
their disquiet, that he felt he had to go public.
He is believed to have cleared the article with his Jesuit superiors.

The previous pope, John Paul II in 1996 declared
to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that
evolution was "no longer a mere hypothesis". In
his July article Cardinal Shönborn played down
this statement as "vague and unimportant". He
points instead to comments Pope John Paul gave
during an audience in 1985, when he spoke at
length of the role of God the creator.

Fr Coyne attacks the cardinal's analysis and says
that the Pope's later statement was
"epoch-making". He goes on: "Why does there seem
to be a persistent retreat in the Church from
attempts to establish a dialogue with the community of scientists?"

The key question behind the debate is the opinion
of new Pope. Some fear that the cardinal would
never have published such a controversial article
in such a prominent medium without his personal
approval. But nothing will be known for certain
until the Pope speaks for himself.


The conflict at the highest level of the Catholic
Church about the truth of Darwin's theory of
evolution breaks out publicly today.

Recent comments by a cardinal close to the Pope
that random evolution was incompatible with
belief in "God the creator" are fiercely assailed
in today's edition of The Tablet, Britain's
Catholic weekly, by the Vatican astronomer.

In an article with explosive implications for the
Church, Father George Coyne, an American Jesuit
priest who is a distinguished astronomy
professor, attacks head-on the views of Cardinal
Christoph Shönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna and
a long-standing associate of Joseph Ratzinger,
the German cardinal who was elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April.

In an article entitled "Finding Design in Nature"
in The New York Times last month, Cardinal
Shönborn reignited the row between the Church and
science by frankly denying that "neo-Darwinian
dogma" was compatible with Christian faith. He
wrote: "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."

His views have provoked alarm among many
scientists and liberal Catholics around the
world, who thought that Catholicism had come to
terms with evolution, and who now see the spectre
of creationism rising in the Catholic Church as
it has risen among fundamentalist Protestants in the US.

Only this week President George Bush said that
the theory of "intelligent design" - a version of
creationism, which disputes the idea that natural
selection alone can explain the complexity of
life - should be taught in America schools alongside the theory of
evolution.

Cardinal Shönborn is understood to have been
urged to write the article, and to have been
helped to place it in The New York Times, by Mark
Ryland, a leading figure in the Discovery
Institute, a conservative American Christian
think-tank that promotes intelligent design.

The cardinal's views are publicly and robustly
rejected by Fr Coyne, director of the Vatican
Observatory, which is a scientific institution sponsored by the Holy See.

Fr Coyne, who is 72, has been in charge of the
observatory since 1978; he spends half the year
in Tucson, Arizona, as a professor in the
University of Arizona astronomy department, where
he is still actively involved in research.

In The Tablet he says that Cardinal Shönborn's
article has "darkened the waters" of the rapport
between Church and science, and says - flatly
contradicting the cardinal - that even a world in
which "life... has evolved through a process of
random genetic mutations and natural selection"
is compatible with "God's dominion".

For a Vatican official of such seniority openly
to attack the views of a cardinal on such a
potentially explosive subject as evolution is
unprecedented. It also reveals a deep rift at the
heart of the Catholic Church's thinking. It is
known that Fr Coyne wrote privately to both
Cardinal Shönborn and the Pope himself protesting
against The New York Times article soon after it
was published last month. But it is understood
that so many scientists, especially Catholic
scientists, have since contacted him to express
their disquiet, that he felt he had to go public.
He is believed to have cleared the article with his Jesuit superiors.

The previous pope, John Paul II in 1996 declared
to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that
evolution was "no longer a mere hypothesis". In
his July article Cardinal Shönborn played down
this statement as "vague and unimportant". He
points instead to comments Pope John Paul gave
during an audience in 1985, when he spoke at
length of the role of God the creator.

Fr Coyne attacks the cardinal's analysis and says
that the Pope's later statement was
"epoch-making". He goes on: "Why does there seem
to be a persistent retreat in the Church from
attempts to establish a dialogue with the community of scientists?"

The key question behind the debate is the opinion
of new Pope. Some fear that the cardinal would
never have published such a controversial article
in such a prominent medium without his personal
approval. But nothing will be known for certain
until the Pope speaks for himself.