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Re: The monkey in Buchanan's tree
JOHN LANGDON (LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU)
Mon, 19 Feb 1996 09:25:47 -0500
In message <Pine.HPP.3.91.960219071837.11094B-100000@acg60.wfunet.wfu.edu>
"Dorothy J. Cattle" writes:
>
> Also, since Buchanan is[?]/was[?] a Catholic, does anyone know the
> various papal encyclicals in which one or more popes set forth the
> Catholic Church's position on evolution and science? I am thinking there
> was an encyclical in the 1940's that stated +/- that the Bible wasn't
> meant to be a book on natural history, that science and the study of
> evolution were valid enterprises, and that as long as science didn't
> presume to deal with matters of the soul, there was no conflict with the
> Church. If someone could cite the relevant official documents, maybe
> Pat's campaign should know about them and also about how limited is their
> candidate's understanding of evolution.
If he is not a Catholic, he is going after the Catholic vote. Is this what you
want?
"Cosmogeny itself speaks to us of origins of the universe and its makeup, not in
order to provide us with a scientific treatise but in order to state the correct
relationship of man with God and with the universe. Sacred scripture wishes
simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this
truth, it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of
the writer. The sacred book likewise wishes to tell men that the world was not
created as the seat of the gods, as was taught by other cosmogonies and
colmologies, but was rather created for the service of man and the glory of God.
Any other teaching about the origin and make up of the universe is alien to the
intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but
how one goes to heaven."
Pope John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 3 October
1981.
[From B. McCollister, ed., 1989. Voices for Evolution. Berkeley: NCSE. P. 62.]
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