Guest Post by Morbo
Back in July, I criticized a Roman Catholic cardinal, Christoph Schonborn, for writing an opinion piece defending “intelligent design.” I asserted that Schonborn was dragging the church back to its anti-intellectual past.
In an effort to be “fair and balanced,” I must note that not all church cardinals are behaving like Neanderthals. Recently, Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, told reporters during a Vatican press conference that the church must pay heed to the scientific community. Failure to do so, Poupard said, risks pushing the church toward “fundamentalism.” It was a welcome and much-needed corrective to Schonborn. Observed Poupard:
“The faithful have an 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.” […]
“We…know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism.”
Imagine that — a church that would actually listen to the secular world every now and then, and even learn from it. Wouldn’t that be a refreshing change?
The cardinal even brought up Galileo, telling reporters, “The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future.”
A monsignor who was also on hand, Gianfranco Basti, specifically defended evolution as more than a theory. “A hypothesis,” he noted, “asks whether something is true or false. [Evolution] is more than a hypothesis because there is proof.”
Basti heads up something called the Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, a Vatican project that seeks to remind church members that there need be no conflict between religion and science.
Not all Catholics will be persuaded by these statements, of course. People like Pat Buchanan, who insist that the bishops must be obeyed when they criticize legal abortion, feel free to ignore them anytime they say anything even vaguely liberal.
But statements like Poupard’s and Basti’s are important because they remind the world that the Catholic Church has an intellectual tradition and that not all clergy are eager to race back to the Middle Ages. Clearly some Catholic clerics and layperson would happily surrender modernism in a rush to embrace fundamentalism and align with Jerry Falwell. Poupard’s comments are a welcome reminder that that won’t happen without a fight. More power to him.