Your editor’s have often contemplated converting from our Protestant version of Christianity to Catholicism. The main selling point? Saturday night service. Anything to sleep in on a Sunday. We were told by our Catholic Mother (who converted in our teen years, causing a Mini-Holy War in our house…we’re part Irish, you can imagine the kitchen terrorism that followed) that this wouldn’t “fly” in Catechism. Their loss, we still date their woman. However, a recent Vatican declaration may have us seriously considering the switch again. The Vatican, taking a page from it’s Galileo maneuver, decided to bury the hatchet with Charles Darwin.
The Vatican decided that the whole evolution thing had some oomph behind it. In fact, somehow, those crazy Catholics think you can espouse Darwinism and still be a good Christian. Pssh, what?
Organisers of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species said that at first it had even been proposed to ban Intelligent Design from the event, as “poor theology and poor science”. Intelligent Design would be discussed at the fringes of the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, but merely as a “cultural phenomenon”, rather than a scientific or theological issue, organisers said.
Saturday service? Check. Support of evolution and working to stop hating science? Check. Can someone confirm if that reason will hold up in Catechism?
Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Catholic pointman on cultural issues, admits the Church hasn’t always played nice with Darwinism, and they kinda feel bad about it. However, now the Church is all about the apes-to-human chart we all grew to love on the Bill Nye intro. The announcement, timed to coincide with the Darwin’s birthday (Happy Birthday! We really don’t want you to burn in hell!), will send some shockwaves through the scientific and religious communities.
Hell, the Vatican even believes that some of the Darwin’s idea can be traced back to some of the work by St. Thomas Aquinas. A Saint. One almost wonders if the two communities might become fast friends (ignoring the fact most people had already come terms with this, maybe the fringe elements might be happy) and set aside their differences and sing kumbaya. That people will finally embrace the idea that science illustrates the mass complexity and awesomeness that God created, instead of undermining it. Or that religion doesn’t hate reason or logic, but embraces and celebrates as sign of the brilliance of God? Or, more than likely, we’ll just hate the Catholics.
