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Since the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, the attitude of the Catholic Church on the theory of evolution has slowly been refined. For about 100 years, there was no authoritative pronouncement on the subject. By 1950, Pope Pius XII agreed to the academic freedom to study the scientific implications of evolution, so long as Catholic dogma is not violated.[1] Today[update], the Church's unofficial position is an example of theistic evolution, also known as evolutionary creation,[2] stating that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict, though humans are regarded as a special creation, and that the existence of God is required to explain both monogenism and the spiritual component of human origins. Moreover, the Church teaches that the process of evolution is a planned and purpose-driven natural process, actively guided by God.[3][4][5]
Catholic concern about evolution has always been very largely concerned with the implications of evolutionary theory for the origin of the human species; even by 1859, the Church did not insist on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, which had long been undermined by developments in geology and other fields.[6] No high-level Church pronouncement has ever attacked head-on the theory of evolution as applied to non-human species.[7] The early Church Fathers taught creationism—though there was debate being over whether God created the world in six days, as Clement of Alexandria taught,[8] or in a single moment as held by Augustine,[9] and a literal interpretation of Genesis was normally taken for granted in the Middle Ages and later, until it was rejected in favour of uniformitarianism (entailing far greater timeframes) by a majority of geologists in the 19th century.[10] However modern literal creationism has had little support among the higher levels of the Church.
The Catholic Church delayed official pronouncements on Darwin's Origin of Species for many decades. While many hostile comments were made by local clergy, Origin of Species was never placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum;[11] in contrast, Henri Bergson's non-Darwinian Creative Evolution (1907), was on the Index from 1948 until it was abolished in 1966.[12] However, a number of Catholic writers who published works specifying how evolutionary theory and Catholic theology might be reconciled ran into trouble of some sort with the Vatican authorities.[13]
The first notable statement after Darwin published his theory appeared in 1860 from a council of the German bishops, who pronounced:
Our first parents were formed immediately by God. Therefore we declare that the opinion of those who do not fear to assert that this human being, man as regards his body, emerged finally from the spontaneous continuous change of imperfect nature to the more perfect, is clearly opposed to Sacred Scripture and to the Faith.[14]
No Vatican response was made to this, which some have taken to imply agreement.[15] In the following decades, a consistently and aggressively anti-evolution position was taken by the influential Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica, which, though unofficial, was generally believed to have accurate information about the views and actions of the Vatican authorities.[16] The opening in 1998 of the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (in the 19th century called the Holy Office and the Congregation of the Index) has revealed that on many crucial points this belief was mistaken, and the journal's accounts of specific cases, often the only ones made public, were not accurate. The original documents show the Vatican's attitude was much less fixed than appeared to be the case at the time.[17]
In 1868, the Blessed John Henry Newman corresponded with a fellow priest regarding Darwin's theory and made the following comments:
As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. Mr. Darwin's theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill. Perhaps your friend has got a surer clue to guide him than I have, who have never studied the question, and I do not [see] that 'the accidental evolution of organic beings' is inconsistent with divine design—It is accidental to us, not to God.[18]
In 1894 a letter was received by the Holy Office, asking for confirmation of the Church's position on a theological book of generally Darwinist cast by a French Dominican theologian, L’évolution restreinte aux espèces organiques, par le père Léroy dominicain. The records of the Holy Office document lengthy debates, with a number of experts consulted, whose views varied considerably. In 1895 the Congregation decided against the book, and Fr. Léroy was summoned to Rome, where it was explained that his views were unacceptable, and he agreed to withdraw the book, which was placed on the Index. Again, the concerns of the experts had concentrated entirely on human evolution.[19]
To reconcile general evolutionary theory with the origin of the human species, with a soul, the concept of "special transformism" was developed, according to which the first humans had evolved by Darwinist processes, up to the point where a soul was added by God to "pre-existent and living matter" (in the words of Pius XII's Humani Generis) to form the first fully human individuals; this would normally be considered to be at the point of conception.[20] Léroy's book endorsed this concept; what led to its rejection by the Congregation appears to have been his view that the human species was able to evolve without divine intervention to a fully human state, but lacking only a soul. The theologians felt that some immediate and particular divine intervention was also required to form the physical nature of humans, before the addition of a soul, even if this was worked on near-human hominids produced by evolutionary processes.[21]
The following year, 1896, John Augustine Zahm, a well-known American Holy Cross priest who had been a professor of physics and chemistry at the Catholic University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and was then Procurator General of his Order in Rome, published Evolution and Dogma, arguing that Church teaching, the Bible, and evolution did not conflict.[22] By 1898 it had been placed on the Index and Zahm forced to recant his views, though he remained sufficiently well thought of to return to the United States as Provincial superior of his Order.[23] In the meantime his book (in an Italian translation with the imprimatur of Siena[24]) had had a great impact on Geremia Bonomelli, the Bishop of Cremona in Italy, who added an appendix to a book of his own, summarizing and recommending Zahn's views. Bonomelli too was pressured, and retracted his views in a public letter, also in 1898.[25]
On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, during the papacy of Pope Pius IX, who defined dogmatically papal infallibility during the First Vatican Council in 1869–70. The council has a section on "Faith and Reason" that includes the following on science and faith:
On God the Creator, the Vatican Council was very clear. The definitions preceding the "anathema" (as a technical term of Catholic theology, let him be "cut off" or excommunicated, cf. Galatians 1:6–9; Titus 3:10–11; Matthew 18:15–17) signify an infallible doctrine of the Catholic Faith (De Fide):
According to Catholic theologian Dr. Ludwig Ott in his 1952 treatise Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma,[26] it is to be understood that these condemnations are of the errors of modern materialism (that matter is all there is), pantheism (that God and the universe are identical), and ancient pagan and gnostic-manichean dualism (where God is not responsible for the entire created world, since mere "matter" is evil not good, see Ott, page 79).
The First Vatican Council also upholds the ability of reason to know God from his creation:
Providentissimus Deus, "On the Study of Holy Scripture", was an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 18 November 1893 on the interpretation of Scripture. It was intended to address the issues arising from both the "higher criticism" and new scientific theories, and their relation with Scripture. Nothing specific concerning evolution was said, and initially both those in favour and against evolution found things to encourage them in the text; however a more conservative interpretation came to be dominant, and the influence of the conservative Jesuit Cardinal Camillo Mazzella detected. Leo stressed the unstable and changing nature of scientific theory, and criticised the "thirst for novelty and the unrestrained freedom of thought" of the age, but accepted that the apparent literal sense of the Bible might not always be correct. In biblical interpretation, Catholic scholars should not "depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires". Leo stressed that both theologians and scientists should confine themselves to their own disciplines as much as possible.[27]
An earlier encyclical of Leo's on marriage, Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae (1880) had described in passing the Genesis account of the creation of Eve from Adam's side as "what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any ..."[28]
The Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a decree ratified by Pope Pius X on June 30, 1909 that stated that the literal historical meaning of the first chapters of Genesis could not be doubted in regard to "the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man; the unity of the human race....". As in 1860, "special creation" was only referred to in respect of the human species.[29]
Pope Pius XII's encyclical of 1950, Humani Generis, was the first encyclical to specifically refer to evolution, and took up a neutral position, again concentrating on human evolution:
Pope Pius XII's teaching can be summarized as follows:
Some theologians believe Pius XII explicitly excludes belief in polygenism as licit. The relevant sentence is this:
In an October 22, 1996, address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John Paul II updated the Church's position to accept evolution of the human body:
In the same address, Pope John Paul II rejected any theory of evolution that provides a materialistic explanation for the human soul:
Statements by Cardinal Schönborn, a close colleague of Benedict XVI, especially a piece in The New York Times on July 7, 2005,[32] appeared to support Intelligent Design, giving rise to speculation about a new direction in the Church's stance on the compatibility between evolution and Catholic dogma; many of Schönborn's complaints about Darwinian evolution echoed pronouncements originating from the Discovery Institute, an interdenominational Christian think tank.[33][34] However, Cardinal Schönborn's book Chance or Purpose (2007, originally in German) accepted with certain qualifications the "scientific theory of evolution", but attacked "evolutionism as an ideology", which he said sought to displace religious teaching over a wide range of issues.[35] Nonetheless, in the mid-1980s, Pope Benedict XVI, while serving as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote a defense of the doctrine of creation against Catholics who stressed the sufficiency of "selection and mutation".[36] Humans, he insisted, are "not the products of chance and error", and "the universe is not the product of darkness and unreason;[36] it comes from intelligence, freedom, and from the beauty that is identical with love."[36]
A five-day conference held in March 2009 by the Pontifical University in Rome, marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species, generally confirmed the lack of conflict between evolutionary theory and Catholic theology, and the rejection of Intelligent Design by Catholic scholars.[37]
The Church has deferred to scientists on matters such as the age of the earth and the authenticity of the fossil record. Papal pronouncements, along with commentaries by cardinals, have accepted the findings of scientists on the gradual appearance of life. In fact, the International Theological Commission in a July 2004 statement endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger, then president of the Commission and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope Benedict XVI, includes this paragraph:
According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the 'Big Bang' and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5–4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution.[5]
The Church's stance is that any such gradual appearance must have been guided in some way by God, but the Church has thus far declined to define in what way that may be. Commentators tend to interpret the Church's position in the way most favorable to their own arguments. The ITC statement includes these paragraphs on evolution, the providence of God, and "intelligent design":
In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation. Although there is scientific debate about the degree of purposiveness or design operative and empirically observable in these developments, they have de facto favored the emergence and flourishing of life. Catholic theologians can see in such reasoning support for the affirmation entailed by faith in divine creation and divine providence. In the providential design of creation, the triune God intended not only to make a place for human beings in the universe but also, and ultimately, to make room for them in his own trinitarian life. Furthermore, operating as real, though secondary causes, human beings contribute to the reshaping and transformation of the universe. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation.[5]
In addition, while he was the Vatican's chief astronomer, Fr. George Coyne, issued a statement on 18 November 2005 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." Cardinal Paul Poupard added that "the faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity." He also warned of the permanent lesson we have learned from the Galileo affair, and that "we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism." Fiorenzo Facchini, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, called intelligent design unscientific, and wrote in the January 16–17, 2006 edition L'Osservatore Romano: "But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science.... It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious. Kenneth R. Miller is another prominent Catholic scientist widely known for vehemently opposing Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design. Nevertheless, some Catholic scientists, such as John C. Sanford and Michael Behe have strongly opposed evolution and have supported the Intelligent design movement, the latter individual even establishing the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute.[38]
In a commentary on Genesis authored as Cardinal Ratzinger titled In the Beginning... Benedict XVI spoke of "the inner unity of creation and evolution and of faith and reason" and that these two realms of knowledge are complementary, not contradictory:
We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the 'project' of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—realities.
— Cardinal Ratzinger, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (Eerdmans, 1995), p. 50.
In a book released in 2008, his comments prior to becoming Pope were recorded as:
The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of "God". The first Thou that—however stammeringly—was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world. Here the Rubicon of anthropogenesis was crossed. For it is not the use of weapons or fire, not new methods of cruelty or of useful activity, that constitute man, but rather his ability to be immediately in relation to God. This holds fast to the doctrine of the special creation of man ... herein ... lies the reason why the moment of anthropogenesis cannot possibly be determined by paleontology: anthropogenesis is the rise of the spirit, which cannot be excavated with a shovel. The theory of evolution does not invalidate the faith, nor does it corroborate it. But it does challenge the faith to understand itself more profoundly and thus to help man to understand himself and to become increasingly what he is: the being who is supposed to say Thou to God in eternity.
— Joseph Ratzinger[39]
On September 2–3, 2006 at Castel Gandolfo, Pope Benedict XVI conducted a seminar examining the theory of evolution and its impact on Catholicism's teaching of Creation. The seminar is the latest edition of the annual "Schülerkreis" or student circle, a meeting Benedict has held with his former Ph.D. students since the 1970s.[40][41] The essays presented by his formers students, including natural scientists and theologians, were published in 2007 under the title Creation and Evolution (in German, Schöpfung und Evolution). In Pope Benedict's own contribution he states that "the question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science", and that "I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science."
In July 2007 at a meeting with clergy Pope Benedict XVI noted that the conflict between "creationism" and evolution (as a finding of science) is “absurd:” [42]
Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called “creationism” and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man? I believe this is of the utmost importance.
In commenting on statements by his predecessor, he writes "it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory." Though commenting that experiments in a controlled environment were limited as "we cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory", he does not endorse Young Earth Creationism or intelligent design. He defends theistic evolution, the reconciliation between science and religion already held by Catholics. In discussing evolution, he writes that "The process itself is rational despite the mistakes and confusion as it goes through a narrow corridor choosing a few positive mutations and using low probability.... This ... inevitably leads to a question that goes beyond science.... Where did this rationality come from?" to which he answers that it comes from the "creative reason" of God.[43][44][45]
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994, revised 1997) on faith, evolution and science states:
159. Faith and science: "... methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are." (Vatican II GS 36:1) 283. The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers.... 284. The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin....
Paragraph 283 has been noted as making a positive comment regarding the theory of evolution, with the clarification that "many scientific studies" that have enriched knowledge of "the development of life-forms and the appearance of man" refers to mainstream science and not to "creation science".[46]
Concerning the doctrine on creation, Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma identifies the following points as essential beliefs of the Catholic faith ("De Fide"):[47]
Polygenism is the belief, religious or scientific, that the human race descended from two or more ancestral types.[48] This is in contrast to monogenism, which teaches that the human race has descended from a single pair of individuals.[49]
Until recently polygenism was considered in the scientific community as a dubious hypothesis: in consequence theologians were discouraged from appropriating it into their writings. It also appeared irreconciliable with several important Catholic docrines, such as the doctrine of Original Sin as inherited by all from Adam.[50] Those who do teach it speculate that evolution brought about not a single couple but many men, who constituted the primitive human population. One of these, considered the leader of mankind, rebelled against God and that this sin passed on to all men, even those alive who did not yet know sin.[51]
Accounting for polygenism would also appear to require new ways of understanding traditional interpretations of biblical episodes: In a learned compendium of Catholic dogmatic decrees - Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, from the marriage of the first man and woman in the Bible, all men and women take their origin and that men then were divided into tribes and nations across the world.[52]. Dogma further teaches that all men are descended from Adam, who was created from the Earth, and his wife, who came from his rib—that these first two did not have human parents who proceeded them.[53]. Such snippets, however, lend themselves to reinterpretation in light of new scientific discovery, as they address theological dogma rather than define aspects of humanity's natural history.
Indeed, a 2004 report of the International Theological Commission, the body of theologians that officially gives theological advice to the pope, highlighted ways in which continuing research and growing consensus within the scientific community on the question of polygenism encourages Catholic theologians to consider ways of accommodating polygenism into their theological reflections.[54] The commission observes, for example, the following:
“In its original unity – of which Adam is the symbol – the human race is made in the image of the divine Trinity.”
“While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage.”
“Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention. Acting indirectly through causal chains operating from the beginning of cosmic history, God prepared the way for what Pope John Paul II has called ‘an ontological leap...the moment of transition to the spiritual.’”
The references to Adam as symbol, to "a humanoid population of common genetic lineage," and to Blessed John Paul II's identification of "an ontological leap," all demonstrate ways that official Catholic teaching is moving in the direction of appropriating not simply certain kinds of evolution theory, but also such once-dubious hypotheses, now theories such as polygenism.
As in other countries, Catholic schools in the United States teach evolution as part of their science curriculum. They teach the fact that evolution occurs and the modern evolutionary synthesis, which is the scientific theory that explains why evolution occurs. This is the same evolution curriculum that secular schools teach. Bishop DiLorenzo of Richmond, chair of the Committee on Science and Human Values in a December 2004 letter sent to all U.S. bishops: "... Catholic schools should continue teaching evolution as a scientific theory backed by convincing evidence. At the same time, Catholic parents whose children are in public schools should ensure that their children are also receiving appropriate catechesis at home and in the parish on God as Creator. Students should be able to leave their biology classes, and their courses in religious instruction, with an integrated understanding of the means God chose to make us who we are."[55]
There have been several organizations composed of Catholic laity and clergy which have advocated positions both supporting evolution and opposed to evolution. For example:
There are many Catholic organizations who gain insight into the relation between Catholic faith and evolution theory from the writings of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J.. Despite occasional objections to aspects of his thought, Teilhard was never condemned by the magisterial church.[62][63][64]
The website "catholic.net", successor to the "Catholic Information Center on the Internet", sometimes features polemics against evolution.[65] Many "traditionalist" organizations are also opposed to evolution, see e.g. the theological journal Living Tradition.[66]