6:33am EST
CATHOLICS SAY EVOLUTION IS COMPATIBLE: In a remarkably odd statement this past week, the Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin!
In fact Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture said that "if the Bible were read correctly" that the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible."
"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator".
He went on to advocate that the idea of creation is a theological one, while the substance of origins is a scientific one and that Catholics should "know" how science sees such things so as to "understand better."
His intent was taken as a rejection of the "intelligent design" debate.
It seems clear to me that Cardinal himself doesn't understand science nor does he understand how scientific laws actually contradict Darwin's theory. (And did long before the official Intelligent Design debate began springing up...)
