The Pope believes in evolution!

by In Wales
Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:30:12 AM EST

Pope condemns gay equality laws ahead of first UK visit | World news | guardian.co.uk
Pope Benedict XVI has condemned British equality legislation for running contrary to "natural law" as he confirmed his first visit to the UK later this year.

At last, he's come around to Darwin. Natural law indeed.


Pope condemns gay equality laws ahead of first UK visit | World news | guardian.co.uk

In a letter addressed to the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, the pope praised Britain's "firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all".

However, he criticised UK legislation for creating "limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs". It is thought his comments relate to laws that came in last year preventing adoption agencies from discriminating against gay couples and also Harriet Harman's equality bill, currently going through parliament.

So that would be equality of opportunity for all apart from gay people?

Pope condemns gay equality laws ahead of first UK visit | World news | guardian.co.uk

In his letter the pope said: "The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

It is also thought the pope was referring to the equality bill, which narrows the special exemption enjoyed by churches allowing them to exclude people whose lifestyles do not fit in with the religious ethos of an organisation when hiring staff. The bishops cited it as another restriction of their freedom of religious belief.

Unjust limitations on freedom. There's another side to that coin. Natural law guarantees equality?

UK society and UK politics is far from secular and the amendments to the Bill that narrowed exemptions for religious organisations to legitimately discriminate against gay people were under serious threat in the Lords. I have to say, I'd love to know what he means by natural law. Any guesses?

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Pope condemns gay equality laws ahead of first UK visit | World news | guardian.co.uk
"The taxpayer is going to be faced with a bill for £20m for the visit - in which he has indicated he will attack equal rights and promote discrimination."


Ad astra per aspera
by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:31:52 AM EST
I somehow think he doesn't mean "natural law" in an Enlightenment sense...

In fact, he means "divine law", but he's too much of a hypocrite to say it.

At the same time, two birds with one stone, he's hinting at homosexuality being "against nature".

What a creep.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:41:17 AM EST
Natural Law.
According to St. Thomas, the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in the eternal law" (I-II.94). The eternal law is God's wisdom, inasmuch as it is the directive norm of all movement and action.
Nothing about evolution there...
by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:43:44 AM EST
I "believe" in evolution just as much as I "believe" in science, that is, I don't...
by Nomad on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 03:49:43 AM EST
The Pope subscribes to the theory of...
Although sadly, it appears that I have been mistaken and he isn't so enlightened after all.

Ad astra per aspera
by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 04:33:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
it's costing the secular UK government (ie taxpayers, of whom a smallish percentage are catholics, of whome a smaller percentage are practicing cathilics, and an even smaller percentage believe this person is infallible) is paying 20 mill for a bigot to come buttress believing brits into not letting go of their bigotry.

sounds like a deal! maybe mullahs would be cheaper...

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 06:11:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, the Pope (or at least the Papacy) does subscribe to the theory of evolution.

Evolution denial in Europe is basically a Turkish and fundagelical Protestant problem.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 06:22:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Evolution and the Catholic Church - Wikipedia

In a commentary on Genesis authored as Cardinal Ratzinger titled In the Beginning... Benedict XVI spoke of "the inner unity of creation and evolution and of faith and reason" and that these two realms of knowledge are complementary, not contradictory:

We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the 'project' of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary -- rather than mutually exclusive -- realities.

- Cardinal Ratzinger, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall [Eerdmans, 1986, 1995], see especially pages 41-58)[page needed]

In a book released in 2008, his comments prior to becoming Pope were recorded as:

The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of "God." The first Thou that - however stammeringly - was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world. Here the Rubicon of anthropogenesis was crossed. For it is not the use of weapons or fire, not new methods of cruelty or of useful activity, that constitute man, but rather his ability to be immediately in relation to God. This holds fast to the doctrine of the special creation of man . . . herein . . . lies the reason why the moment of anthropogenesis cannot possibly be determined by paleontology: anthropogenesis is the rise of the spirit, which cannot be excavated with a shovel. The theory of evolution does not invalidate the faith, nor does it corroborate it. But it does challenge the faith to understand itself more profoundly and thus to help man to understand himself and to become increasingly what he is: the being who is supposed to say Thou to God in eternity.

- Joseph Ratzinger[31]

Evolution denial [precise wording BTW; I like to emphasize that "creationism" isn't simply biblical literalism or evolution denial, but a set of beliefs and assertions and rhetoric with their origin in the US fundagellical anti-science movement] does exist among Catholics, even if it is not Church-sanctioned today. However, from personal experience, it seems what is more common is the insistence on their God's direct involvement in key moments: the emergence of life and the evolution of humans (who are supposed to be the only species with a soul).

Still, I do fear that with the proselytizing of creationists, eventually more of their ideas will spread to Catholics. (Already in the past decade, ID was propular among them for a time.) As an analogy of alien ideas of a rival sect being adopted, think of suicide bombing spreading from Shi'a to Sunni Muslims, though martyrdom would suit only the formers' dogmas.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 09:48:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"God's involvement in key moments" is experimentally indistinguishable from plain, old evolution. So I say it's close enough for corporate work. If they don't subscribe to Occam's razor, well, that's their problem as long as they remember to shave in the lab and the classroom.

Creationism spreading to the Catholic community is certainly something to watch for, but I think it's fairly easy to repel it by showing them some of the more - ah - interesting sides of Hovind and Chick. These guys really, really don't like Catholics - and they don't mind telling everybody who cares to listen (and quite a few who don't).

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 06:00:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
"God's involvement in key moments" is experimentally indistinguishable from plain, old evolution.

Well, to be a nitpicker, abiogenesis [resp. creation of life] is not part of evolution, and while the claim that only humans have this thing called 'soul' may make the emergence of humans experimentally undistinguishable from plain, old evolution, it has moral consequences.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Wed Feb 3rd, 2010 at 03:06:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Nitpicking myself too:

"creationism" isn't simply biblical literalism or evolution denial, but a set of beliefs and assertions and rhetoric with their origin in the US fundagellical anti-science movement

That applies to Young Earth Creationism. Old Earth Creationism is much more vague, and could be considered to encompass Catholic God-guided-everything ideas as well as those having a knack on the Anthropic Principle. Intelligent Design was originally their idea (it's not a denial of evolution but of abiogenesis and early unicellular evolution), before the YEC crowd saw tactical benefits in it, so perhaps the recent popularity of ID among Catholics I mentioned is a weak indicator of the level they can be influenced by the fundagelicals.

The repeat of US creationist claims (like the Paluxy River footprints) by Polish Catholic YEC fundies is a stronger indicator, however. I mean those noxious people like this MEP from Poland or his party comrade in the education ministry in the previous government, who just can't accept being related to apes.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Wed Feb 3rd, 2010 at 03:51:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I assume that TV coverage will be grovelling with no sign of anyone remotely critical. Im pressing for an alternate soundtrack on all programes with the medieval nations visit.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 07:22:57 AM EST

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 07:33:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Wonder if he'll make a stop to visit his friendly neighborhood Holocaust deniers?

We are merely the thermometer indicating the fever in the body of the church," says SSPX leader Bishop Fellay. The society claims to have 600,000 supporters. It maintains six seminaries, 14 districts, 161 priories and 725 mass centers and is active in 1,000 locations worldwide. The society is growing in the United States, Asia and Africa.

It was this potential that the pope had in mind when he lifted the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops last year. Benedict is a traditionalist and, like the Pius Brothers, he loves the Latin mass, shares their ideas about morality and sometimes despairs of modern society, which could turn a sentence Williamson uttered on a Swedish television program into a global scandal.

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=24384

by asdf on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 09:00:02 AM EST


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