Faithful Should Listen to Science
More news from the Vatican
A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into “fundamentalism” if it ignores scientific reason.
Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science
Not surprisingly the questions asked, involved the issue of evolution and Intelligent Design
Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and “intelligent design.”
Intelligent design’s supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul’s 1996 statement that evolution was “more than just a hypothesis.”
“A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false,” he said. “(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof.”
Indeed, the comments by the Pope are in fact Catholic doctrine while the statements by Schoenborn, other than being perhaps confused by DI rethoric, were just that “his own comments”.
He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996 statement by John Paul as “rather vague and unimportant” and seemed to back intelligent design.
Basti concurred that John Paul’s 1996 letter “is not a very clear expression from a definition point of view,” but he said evolution was assuming ever more authority as scientific proof develops.
Poupard, for his part, stressed that what was important was that “the universe wasn’t made by itself, but has a creator.” But he added, “It’s important for the faithful to know how science views things to understand better.”
And since ID is scientifically vacuous and theologically risky, it should not come as a surprise that it has not much to contribute to these issues. Other than to add to the confusion of the faithful.