Evolution or Creation?

[Guest fountainhall]

The debate continues. This from the BBC website.

 

The Vatican is sponsoring a five day conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. The subject is the compatibility of evolution and creation. They aim to re-examine the work of scientific thinkers whose revolutionary ideas challenged religious belief: Galileo and Charles Darwin.

 

Scientists, philosophers and theologians from around the world are gathering at the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome to discuss the compatibility of Darwin's theory of evolution and Catholic teaching. Christian churches were long hostile to Darwin because his theory conflicted with the literal biblical account of creation. But the Catholic Church never condemned Darwin, as it condemned and silenced Galileo.

 

Pope John Paul II said that evolution was "more than a hypothesis".

 

Yet as recently as 2006 a leading Catholic Cardinal, Christoff Schoenborn, of Vienna, a former student and friend of Pope Benedict XVI caused controversy by saying that Darwin's theory of natural selection was incompatible with Christian belief.

 

A leading American scholar of biology, Prof Francisco Ayala, plans to tell the conference that the so-called theory of intelligent design, proposed by Creationists, is flawed.

 

"The design of organisms is not what would be expected from an intelligent engineer, but imperfect and worse," he said.

 

"Defects, dysfunctions, oddities, waste and cruelty pervade the living world".

[Guest shebavon]

So this is where the Flat Earth Society still assemble.

 

Sounds like a meeting of the Republican Party.

[Guest fountainhall]

So this is where the Flat Earth Society still assemble.

 

But that notion holds no water when you can travel round the world in about 40 hours - unless there is anyone mad enough to think you fly under the world for half the time! Yes Republicans, maybe!

[Guest MonkeySee]

So this is where the Flat Earth Society still assemble.

All the pope has to do is say the world is flat, then it is so. You know he is infallible! Now get down on your knees and say three hail marys for thinking the pope could make a mistake.

[Guest lvdkeyes]

All the pope has to do is say the world is flat, then it is so. You know he is infallible! Now get down on your knees and say three hail marys for thinking the pope could make a mistake.

As a recovering Catholic, I can tell you that the infallibility of the pope relates only to matters of Catholic dogma.

[Guest fountainhall]

I can tell you that the infallibility of the pope relates only to matters of Catholic dogma

 

I am curious - what about the creation of saints, a practice that the late Pope John Paul somewhat overused, to say the least? I ask because there is a process going on to elevate Pius XII up the tree of recognition. This man, for those who have never read John Cornwell's stunning 1999 expose "Hitler's Pope", was very much in league with the Nazi regime. Cornwell came to this conclusion after having been invited to examine thousands of documents in the Vatican archives. Even though the author himself has now retracted some of the allegations, most people continue to regard this as one of the most shameful periods in Catholic history. Yet, the man who led the Church at the time is being pushed as a saint. Who, I wonder, makes the final decision?

[Guest lvdkeyes]

Who, I wonder, makes the final decision?

The church hierarchy i.e., the college of cardinals, starts the process and then the pope decides based on the evidence meeting the criteria.

[Guest fountainhall]

So from the present Pope's earlier remarks, I expect "Hitler's Pope" is certain to be elevated to the sainthood. I wonder who will pray to him!!

[Guest laurence]

Are we now going to have a "bash the Catholic Church/Pope in Rome" as Baht-Stop has their "bash the Jews/Zionists in Israel"? I hope not.

[Rogie]

A leading American scholar of biology, Prof Francisco Ayala, plans to tell the conference that the so-called theory of intelligent design, proposed by Creationists, is flawed.

 

"The design of organisms is not what would be expected from an intelligent engineer, but imperfect and worse," he said.

 

"Defects, dysfunctions, oddities, waste and cruelty pervade the living world".

 

A bit unfair to zero in on whether Pius XII is destined for sainthood when there looks to me as if there are some open-minded people, scholars, call them what you will, on the scene. If such people as this are prepared to genuinely debate these issues and if free speech is encouraged, that can only help the Catholic Church move on. It may be fair to say they have a lot of catching up to do.

 

[Guest MonkeySee]

The church hierarchy i.e., the college of cardinals, starts the process and then the pope decides based on the evidence meeting the criteria.

I wonder what miracles that Pius VII will be said to have made?

 

[Guest lvdkeyes]

I wonder what miracles that Pius VII will be said to have made?

Isn't that Pius XII?

 

[Guest fountainhall]

If such people as this are prepared to genuinely debate these issues and if free speech is encouraged, that can only help the Catholic Church move on. It may be fair to say they have a lot of catching up to do

 

Starting a debate 150 years after Darwin's theory questioned religious dogma seems just a tad slow to me, however frank the discussion. And what if they find in favour of Galileo's theories, more than three and a half centuries after his death following 10 years of house arrest ordered by the Pope for heresy. It will all be extremely interesting to see what compromise between dogma and fact comes out of this process - for surely the Church will never abandon the teachings which are virtually the basis of its foundation!

 

Are we now going to have a "bash the Catholic Church/Pope in Rome"?

 

I have no intention of getting involved in such shenanigans. I have merely brought to the thread two issues - one a BBC report and the other my own question re the creation of saints. I see no reason to extend it to any other areas - although since this Board has already had a very extensive and interesting debate on matters relating to the Islamic and Jewish religions, many historical, there's a host of other matters which could be worthy of dicussion - not bashing .

 

I suppose when you look through the panoply of saints, there's a pretty good mix of those I'd call truly saintly - e.g. St. Francis - and others elevated for perhaps a mix of reasons. My comments about Pius XII were conditioned largely, but not wholly, by "Hitler's Pope" - written, I might add, by the eminently respected lifelong Vatican and Catholic scholar, John Cornwell. Indeed, so highly regarded was the author by the Vatican that they opened their archives for him so he could investigate all the facts surrounding the seemingly suspicious death of John Paul I in 1978. The resultant book " A Thief in the Night" highlighted the secrecy of the ways of the Vatican and hardly painted the Vatican hierarchy in a good light, but it did lay to rest the myth that the late Pope had been murdered.

 

As I mentioned, Cornwall's conclusions re Pius XII have been tempered over the last 10 years. Yet, there is no doubt (i) that he was openly anti-semitic; (ii) that he masterminded the 1933 agreement with Hitler, made when he was Vatican Secretary of State, an agreement which protected the Catholic Church in exchange for its complete withdrawal from any political comment on what was happening in the Third Reich; (iii) that as Pope he continuously turned a blind eye to the pleas of Jews being rounded up in Rome for transportation to the death camps, refusing in any way to "disapprove" of the action; and (iv) that he further refused to condemn Hitler even after becoming aware of the Final Solution.

 

These actions alone must surely render him a highly controversial candidate for sainthood. Yet, the sainthood process continues apace under the present Pope. In the spirit of fairness I am open to those arguments in favour.

[Gaybutton]

These actions alone must surely render him a highly controversial candidate for sainthood. Yet, the sainthood process continues apace under the present Pope. In the spirit of fairness I am open to those arguments in favour.

With all due respect to Catholics, so far nobody has said anything about why the Catholic Church wishes to canonize this Pope as a saint in the first place. I am not trying to bash anything. I'm trying to understand. What is it about this Pope that qualifies him as a saint? I don't think there would be too many people who would dispute that whatever he was, he was no Mother Theresa. So, what is it that makes him a candidate for sainthood?

[Guest fountainhall]

What is it about this Pope that qualifies him as a saint?

 

I am equally mystified. It is certainly not just because he was a Pope. In the history of the Papacy, only some 76 of 265 Popes have been made saints.

 

Perhaps the good Lord passed some sort of judgement on the day of Pius XII's funeral. His former doctor, put in charge of embalming the body, decided to experiment with a new technique which left the intestines in place. As a direct consequence, the corpse began to rot quickly in the autumn heat.

 

When the hearse paused outside the church of St. John Lateran, a series of "dreadful farts and eructations was heard to issue from the body, a result, apparently, of rapid fermentation. During the lying-in-state in St. Peter's, the dead Pope's face turned grey-green and then purple, and the stench was so overpowering that one of the attendant guards fainted. A final indignity, his nose went black and fell off before interment."

 

Was this justice, I am moved to ask, for a life less than truly holy?

[Guest laurence]

Perhaps the good Lord passed some sort of judgement on the day of Pius XII's funeral. His former doctor, put in charge of embalming the body, decided to experiment with a new technique which left the intestines in place. As a direct consequence, the corpse began to rot quickly in the autumn heat.

 

When the hearse paused outside the church of St. John Lateran, a series of "dreadful farts and eructations was heard to issue from the body, a result, apparently, of rapid fermentation. During the lying-in-state in St. Peter's, the dead Pope's face turned grey-green and then purple, and the stench was so overpowering that one of the attendant guards fainted. A final indignity, his nose went black and fell off before interment."

 

Was this justice, I am moved to ask, for a life less than truly holy?

 

After reading the above I am happy to read that you are not going to bash the Pope!

 

As for the Pius XII's silence on the Holocaust it was also shared, in part, by the Americans and British.

 

[Gaybutton]

As for the Pius XII's silence on the Holocaust it was also shared, in part, by the Americans and British.

Oh, come on! You say that as if it's the adult version of a child saying, "But he did it too." Can you explain to me how the fact that the silence of the Americans and British justifies the Pope's silence or enhances his qualifications to be canonized as a saint? If anything, the USA and UK did what they did in the name of politics and trying to fight a war. That doesn't make it right in any sense, but I thought the Pope was supposed to be acting in the name of religion and virtue, hardly the same thing as politics or war. I think the USA and UK were dead wrong to be silent about the Holocaust when it was happening. I also think the Pope, who is supposed to be infallible, was also dead wrong. Why didn't he try to do anything about it? Why didn't he ever say one word about it?

 

Just for the sake of argument, suppose he was totally unaware of the Holocaust. Again, what it is that qualifies him as a saint or motivates the present day Catholic Church to be moving in the direction of canonizing him as a saint? With respect to Catholics, that is something else that made it to my "I Don't Get It" list.

[Guest laurence]

Maybe the Pope kept quiet since all the Protestants churches loudly protested the Nazi extermination of the Jews? Or did they?

 

I didn't say the Pope's silence had anything to do with enhancing his qualifications to be canonized. Where did you get that from?

 

My point is that many people, politicians, world leaders, religious leaders (the Pope is all of them) remained quiet during WWII regarding the Holocaust for reasons we question today.

 

Whatever the reason for the case of canonization of Pius XII I don't expect the answer will be found on this forum.

 

 

 

 

[Gaybutton]

Where did you get that from?

Wal-Mart

[Guest MonkeySee]

Isn't that Pius XII?

Yes, of course you are right. Forget Pius XII, I think Pope Julius III (1550-1555) should be sainted. He is the pope that made a beautiful seventeen year old street boy, Innocenzo del Monte, a cardinal. That caused a few rumors, but of course Innocenzo was well qualified to be a cardinal!

[Guest fountainhall]

Whatever the reason for the case of canonization of Pius XII I don't expect the answer will be found on this forum

 

Being curious, I have done a little research on the matter and will give it a try. Apologies if any of the following is less than 100% accurate.

 

Pius XII was a distant, autocratic and conservative man. He lived a life of austere, almost monk-like simplicity. Yet he was to centralise more power in the Papal office than any other recent Pope; deciding, for example, not to appoint a new Secretary of State and assuming those duties in addition to those of Pope.

 

Whilst he was revered by hundreds of millions around the world in his official capacity, he was not loved as an individual, unlike his successor, the rotund, ever smiling and almost universally adored, John XXIII. Having decided that the Catholic Church was in need of major reform and renewal, John XXIII convened the 2nd Vatican Council to make the Church more progressive and responsive to the needs of the mid-20th century.

 

When John XXIII died before the Council could complete its deliberations, many liberals in the Church called for his immediate canonization (a major step up the sainthood ladder) by acclamation, rather than by the long drawn-out process more usually undertaken. His successor, Paul VI, a man who often agonized for months before making decisions and clearly wished to appease both wings of the Church, sat on the fence by announcing the commencement of formal sainthood procedures for both John XXIII and Pius XII. .

 

As I understand it, John XXIII has already been "beatified" - the last formal step before canonization. The case for Pius XII, on the other hand, seems stalled. According to some sources, the present Pope Benedict has told Jewish leaders he is "seriously considering" freezing the sainthood process of Pope Pius XII until the Vatican's historical archives can be opened. Since papers are normally released only after a gap of 75 years, there is still almost a quarter of a century to go before the full extent of Pius' activities is known.

 

Postscript

 

The claim that the Vatican needed to remain neutral in the war has been refuted in recent years. In January 2001, a document declassified by the U.S. National Archives was discovered by the World Jewish Congress. The document was a report in which Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Pius XII's secretary of state at the start of his papacy, detailed and denounced several abuses committed by the Soviet Army against German inhabitants of the Soviet Union. The report was widely viewed as demonstrating that the Vatican had no compunctions about speaking out against atrocities, particularly those against German citizens, even when doing so would violate neutrality.

 

Monsignor Montini was eventually to become Pope Paul VI, that same Pope who initiated sainthood proceedings for Pius XII. As Henry James says in The Turn of the Screw - "It is a curious story."

[Guest shebavon]

Maybe the Pope kept quiet since all the Protestants churches loudly protested the Nazi extermination of the Jews? Or did they?

 

I didn't say the Pope's silence had anything to do with enhancing his qualifications to be canonized. Where did you get that from?

 

My point is that many people, politicians, world leaders, religious leaders (the Pope is all of them) remained quiet during WWII regarding the Holocaust for reasons we question today.

 

Whatever the reason for the case of canonization of Pius XII I don't expect the answer will be found on this forum.

It was this response of the collective churches and nations that fueled the UN's creation of the State of Israel after WWII.

 

Perhaps it is because the current Pope believes this was a miracle created by Pius that merits sainthood.

[Guest laurence]

It was this response of the collective churches and nations that fueled the UN's creation of the State of Israel after WWII.

 

After viewing the films of the results of the Holocaust it is quite understandable that both churches and nations would feel guilty for not having done more.

 

But the real culprit was Hitler and the Nazis and not the Pope, Churches or Nations.

 

[Guest lvdkeyes]

After viewing the films of the results of the Holocaust it is quite understandable that both churches and nations would feel guilty for not having done more.

 

But the real culprit was Hitler and the Nazis and not the Pope, Churches or Nations.

Is a crowd, that stands by and watches a murder and does nothing to stop it, less culpable than the perpetrator? I don't think so.

[Gaybutton]

the real culprit was Hitler and the Nazis and not the Pope, Churches or Nations.

I don't think anyone is disputing that, but the question is not about that. The question is what did Pope Pius XII do that makes the Catholic Church want to canonize him as a saint? There must be a reason. I'd like to know what it is.