Sometimes something comes along to shatter long standing misperceptions about the Catholic Church’s stand on one thing or another. This is true of the presumed conflict between religion and science. Yes, back in the day of Galileo, it was a bumptious time between science and religion,
but 405 years ago
the Vatican established the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, with plenary meetings every year. Today, of the 82 members of this Academy almost half of them are Nobel laureates.
This year’s gathering marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the contribution he made to the science of evolution. One of the members present was Steven Hawking, the noted physicist from Cambridge who wrote the all-time best selling book, A Brief History of Time.
The Catholic Church does not have the kinds of religious problems with evolution as fundamentalist Christians do. To understand the Catholic view on this, click here to read Pope Benedict’s address given to the members of the Academy last Friday. The topic of the gathering was the Scientific Insight into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life.
