Pope John Paul II
on
Evolution and Mary
"Pope Says We May Descend From Monkeys," "Pope Backs Acceptance of Evolution," these and
similar headlines greeted newspaper readers in response to Pope John Paul II's address to the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 23, 1996. Was the Holy Father endorsing evolution, as
the press would have us believe? The truth is that the only one making a monkey out of anyone
was the media duping its audience.
In the Pope's carefully worded remarks Darwin's theory was rejected as unacceptable because it
is destructive both to man's dignity and freedom, both of which are affirmed by revelation.
Parenthetically, Darwin's theories are also rejected by a growing list of world-class scholars like:
professor emeritus Dr. William Marra of Fordham, Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard biologist, Dr.
Maciej Giertych, head of the Genetics Department, polish Academy of Sciences, John Bonner,
biology professor at Princeton, Richard Lewontin, professor of zoology and genetics at Harvard,
Richard Goldschmidt, the geneticist who taught at Berkeley, Otto Schindewolf, the great German
paleontologist, the late Pierre P. Grasse, president of the French Academy of Sciences, along with
biologists and geneticists with international reputations like: Hans Driesch in Germany, Lucien
Cuenot in France, and Vernon Kellog and T.H. Morgan in America.
Pope John Paul II's address reaffirmed Pope Pius XII's statements in the encyclical Humani
Generis (1950) - that the human soul was directly created by God and not through an
evolutionary process. The present Pope in his general audiences January 24 and April 16, 1986
also reinforced this teaching. He pointed out that the Book of Genesis "has above all a religious
and theological importance. There are not to be sought in it significant elements from the point
of view of the natural sciences . . . Indeed, the theory of natural evolution, understood in a sense
that does not exclude divine causality, is not in principle opposed to the truth about the creation
of the visible world as presented in the Book of Genesis. . . The doctrine of faith, however,
invariably affirms that man's spiritual soul is created directly by God. According to the
hypothesis mentioned, it is possible that the human body, following the order impressed by the
Creator on the energies of life, could have been gradually prepared in the forms of antecedent
living beings."
In addition the Holy Father reiterated the Church's teaching that the truth of faith has nothing to
fear from scientific research so long as it is not perverted by false philosophies and hostile
ideologies which distort its methodologies and counterfeit its findings. Contrary to the
misinformation found in the popular press, the Holy Father's remarks give no support to those
who want to enshrine Darwin's theory with the cloak of fact. John Paul II has reasserted that true
science always conforms to God's revelation.
This balanced view which sees no conflict between the truth of faith and the truth of science is
characteristic of Catholic Church teaching. What may surprise many, even Roman Catholics, is to
realize that this harmony resonates in part from the Church's teaching on Mary. The Lutheran
pastor, professor and author, Dr. Charles Dickson in his fine book, A Protestant Pastor Looks at
Mary persuasively develops this theme.
1
"Interestingly, this controversy of science versus religion has involved primarily Protestant
fundamentalist groups who, holding on to a rigid biblicism, feel threatened by suggestions of the
scientific community that there may be ways of explaining the biological processes whereby
human beings have arrived at the point we now are. . . It is at this point that the position of the
Blessed Virgin Mary becomes a prime importance. For Catholics and all others who will consider
it, a mature view of Mary in god's plan of creation provides us with a key to understanding
science, while at the same time relieving us of the problem of involvement in the age-old
controversies between science and religion."1
"Such an honest recognition of the important role of Mary as the Mother of God helps us to
understand how a loving God used the processes of the natural world to become one with His
creation. This is the glorious mystery of the Incarnation, which occurs through the vehicle of the
flesh of the Blessed Virgin"2
"For Christians, God is not an idea but a Person who comes to us in the flesh through His Divine
Son. The Blessed Virgin is the agent of the Incarnation. Therefore God can be above the processes
of nature as well as the One who acts within them. The Incarnation through Mary both enriches
religion and ennobles science. The seventeenth-century cleric Philip Henry asserted, 'The person
who thinks there can be any real conflict between science and religion must be either very young
in science or very ignorant in religion"3
1. Charles Dickson, A Protestant Pastor Looks at Mary (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing
Division, c. 1996), pp. 55-562.
2. Ibid., p. 56.
3. Ibid., pp. 58-59.
August 28, 1999
Saint Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, Picayune, MS
[Link]
Reprinted with permission of
James Seghers and Totus Tuus Ministries
[Link]
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