Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Evolution dispute now set to split Catholic hierarchy (The Independent)

Evolution dispute now set to split Catholic hierarchy
 By Michael McCarthy
 Published: 05 August 2005
 The conflict at the highest level of the Catholic Church about the 
truth of Darwin's theory of evolution breaks out publicly today.
 Recent comments by a cardinal close to the Pope that random evolution 
was incompatible with belief in "God the creator" are fiercely assailed 
in today's edition of The Tablet, Britain's Catholic weekly, by the 
Vatican astronomer.
In an article with explosive implications for the Church, Father George 
Coyne, an American Jesuit priest who is a distinguished astronomy 
professor, attacks head-on the views of Cardinal Christoph Shönborn, 
the Archbishop of Vienna and a long-standing associate of Joseph 
Ratzinger, the German cardinal who was elected as Pope Benedict XVI in 
April.
In an article entitled "Finding Design in Nature" in The New York Times 
last month, Cardinal Shönborn reignited the row between the Church and 
science by frankly denying that "neo-Darwinian dogma" was compatible 
with Christian faith. He wrote: "Evolution in the sense of common 
ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo- Darwinian sense - an 
unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - 
is not."
His views have provoked alarm among many scientists and liberal 
Catholics around the world, who thought that Catholicism had come to 
terms with evolution, and who now see the spectre of creationism rising 
in the Catholic Church as it has risen among fundamentalist Protestants 
in the US.
Only this week President George Bush said that the theory of 
"intelligent design" - a version of creationism, which disputes the 
idea that natural selection alone can explain the complexity of life - 
should be taught in America schools alongside the theory of evolution.
Cardinal Shönborn is understood to have been urged to write the 
article, and to have been helped to place it in The New York Times, by 
Mark Ryland, a leading figure in the Discovery Institute, a 
conservative American Christian think-tank that promotes intelligent 
design.
The cardinal's views are publicly and robustly rejected by Fr Coyne, 
director of the Vatican Observatory, which is a scientific institution 
sponsored by the Holy See.
Fr Coyne, who is 72, has been in charge of the observatory since 1978; 
he spends half the year in Tucson, Arizona, as a professor in the 
University of Arizona astronomy department, where he is still actively 
involved in research.
In The Tablet he says that Cardinal Shönborn's article has "darkened 
the waters" of the rapport between Church and science, and says - 
flatly contradicting the cardinal - that even a world in which "life... 
has evolved through a process of random genetic mutations and natural 
selection" is compatible with "God's dominion".
For a Vatican official of such seniority openly to attack the views of 
a cardinal on such a potentially explosive subject as evolution is 
unprecedented. It also reveals a deep rift at the heart of the Catholic 
Church's thinking. It is known that Fr Coyne wrote privately to both 
Cardinal Shönborn and the Pope himself protesting against The New York 
Times article soon after it was published last month. But it is 
understood that so many scientists, especially Catholic scientists, 
have since contacted him to express their disquiet, that he felt he had 
to go public. He is believed to have cleared the article with his 
Jesuit superiors.
The previous pope, John Paul II in 1996 declared to the Pontifical 
Academy of Sciences that evolution was "no longer a mere hypothesis". 
In his July article Cardinal Shönborn played down this statement as 
"vague and unimportant". He points instead to comments Pope John Paul 
gave during an audience in 1985, when he spoke at length of the role of 
God the creator.
Fr Coyne attacks the cardinal's analysis and says that the Pope's later 
statement was "epoch-making". He goes on: "Why does there seem to be a 
persistent retreat in the Church from attempts to establish a dialogue 
with the community of scientists?"
The key question behind the debate is the opinion of new Pope. Some 
fear that the cardinal would never have published such a controversial 
article in such a prominent medium without his personal approval. But 
nothing will be known for certain until the Pope speaks for himself.

 Vatican astronomer.
#_Denghhhhhhh!
Ecco che si affacciano in chiesa ripercussioni sulle iniziative didattiche
in USA...mah! Daltronde Giorgetto Dobliu`non e` il nuovo messia del
millennio !!?? A quando lo scisma? :)
Giano

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Be', non e' cosi' semplice. Io ho conosciuto Coyne e so che e' un 
americano e uomo d'onore. Dopo che  la Chiesa riconobbe il Big Bang, 
sarebbe molto triste tornare indietro.
Per un uomo pio la realta' e' sacra di per se, non ha bisogno di nessun 
architetto ad imitazione dell'uomo, IMVHO.
Am.

"amalric" <ama...@TOGLIMIalice.it> wrote in message
news:2005080800213650073%amalric@TOGLIMIaliceit...
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#_Eccellente, amico mio!
Senza contare che per un buddhista ateo e`,in essenza, ancor piu`sacra(!),
magica(!) e misteriosa IMO.
Giano
P.S.: Scusa per l'esclamazione "amico mio"; ti costera`parecchio
un'affermazione che ti unisce ad un pestifero "untato" come me. ;-)