Mark, I noticed that you didn't directly say that the Pope or the Vatican are young earth creationist, but instead implied that both by your quote above and by your hand picked quote fragments. Sadly, that's another instance of the creationist tactic of incomplete quoting. Take a look at this longer quote endosed by the Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI is Joseph Ratzinger), and tell me if you agree that the Pope supports Theistic Evolution, please.
You should know that I'm only a Young Earth Creationist by default. The fact is that the opening verse of Genesis describes an original creation with an undisclosed period of time until the first day of creation. No essential doctrine is at stake, with regards to the creation of Adam and the lineal descent of mankind it's another matter. My issue with TOE is not whether or not bacteria accumulate beneficial mutations, the age of the universe or whether or not amphibians became whales and dolphins. My core issue is whether Adam and Eve were specially created and our first parents, there is no other doctrinal issue at stake. My reasons are not simply Biblical since I'm convinced from the scientific evidence that the human brain had neither the time nor the means to have evolved from apes.
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.
For one thing the age of the universe has nothing to do with evolution or creation for that matter. When the universe and the planet were originally created falls well beyond the scope of the Genesis account of creation. So in the above statement the Pope supports both YEC and TE, his statement also supports atheistic materialism because the truth of what he says is perfectly compatible with all of them.
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.
The Pope is entitled to his opinion which is all this is and it's a highly general one at that. None of what he is saying is canonical or RCC dogma so yes, certain issues remain a matter of opinion and allow a theistic evolutionist position. However, certain things are not.
Do you agree that Polygenism (belief the human race descended from two or more ancestral types) is contrary to RCC dogma. That the RCC 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?
Of course it has affirmed a literal Adam - which fits with theistic evolution. As I've mentioned time and again, theistic evolution allows for a literal Adam, in the TE approaches where Adam is one of the transitional forms between ape and man, being the first human with the ability to know God.
This view is explicitly allowed by official edict, one being the Humani Generis, in paragraph #36:
For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter -
Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis 36 Available online at CATHOLIC LIBRARY: Humani Generis (1950)[/INDENT]
Then from Humani Generis 37:
37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is no no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
So Mark, do you understand yet that a literal, real, first human Adam is fully consistent with theistic evolution?
Papias
Do you understand that a 'too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament' is described as deplorable in this letter?
Theistic evolution is not fully consistent with a literal reading of Genesis 2 as an historical narrative. It holds to a belief the Roman Catholic Church has termed, 'polygenism'.
Do you affirm, uphold or otherwise believe in polygenism (belief the human race descended from two or more ancestral types)? If so do you realize that you are in opposition to Catholic teaching on the subject and if not do you realize that you would have to be a creationist?
Have a nice day
Mark
