Social conservatives in the United States who’ve been unhappy with Pope Francis’ moderation today have one more reason to be upset. Daniel Berger reported this afternoon:
Pope Francis broke with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real, and remarking that God is not “a magician with a magic wand.”“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” the pope said at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, during a plenary meeting dedicated to evolving concepts of nature.
The pope’s remarks came earlier today in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
“The Big Bang, that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God; on the contrary, it requires it,” the Roman Catholic pontiff said. “Evolution in nature is not in contrast with the notion of [divine] creation because evolution requires the creation of the beings that evolve.”
Francis described a vision in which living beings evolve naturally, “in accordance with the internal laws” ascribed by God.
It is important to note, as the report from the Religion News Service emphasized, that this is not exactly a theological breakthrough: “Unlike much of evangelical Protestantism in the U.S., Catholic teaching traditionally has not been at odds with evolution. In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed there was no opposition between evolution and Catholic doctrine. In 1996, St. John Paul II endorsed Pius’ statement.”
When it comes to Christian hostility towards modern biology, most of the opposition comes by way of Evangelical Protestants, not Roman Catholics.
Still, Francis’ remarks are welcome for supporters of science in light of his immediate predecessor.
The msnbc report added, The language was a significant departure from Benedict XVI and his close advisers, who had voiced support for the idea that intelligent design underpins evolution. In 2005, close Benedict associate Cardinal Schoenborn wrote a New York Times op-ed in which he declared, “evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process — is not.”
The Religion News Service report noted that Giovanni Bignami, a professor and president of Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics, welcomed Francis’ comments, saying he had buried the “pseudo theories” of creationists.
“The pope’s statement is significant,” Bignami told Italian news agency Adnkronos. “We are the direct descendants from the Big Bang that created the universe. Evolution came from creation.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."