A couple weeks back when we were talking about Intelligent Design, somebody brought up that the Catholic Church doesn’t see any conflict between scientific approaches to how life began and religious ones. Today I found a nice passage which illustrates the Church’s stance on these issues. This is from the official Catechism of the Catholic Church (Part 1, Section 1, Chapter 3):
Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.
As far as I understand it (though I could be wrong), this stance was adopted by the Church as part of the reforms of the Vatican II council. In any case, I gotta say that this is one of those areas that the Catholics have got a lot of the Fundamentalist Christian groups beat hands down. This to me seems like such a more healthy attitude to take.
Although, at the same time, if you extrapolate from this you’re bound to run into contradictory elements in Catholicism. This argument that God created all things and guides the hands of people could just as easily be used to justify the occult arts & sciences. I’ll have to look around the Catechism and see if I can find where they address all that stuff though.
In any event, it’s very interesting to see how the Catholic Church approaches the supposed “conflict” between science and religion.
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7 Comments
Its wild how people (mainly non Catholics) have such deep-seated beliefs that the Catholic Church is anti-science, literalist, and xenophobic. Then when you see passages like the one pasted above, it throws that impression for a loop. Other sections of interest, that break common stereotypes:
And also:
Let me state, I am no fan of the Church. Rumor has it that JPII feared deeply that the upper echelons were engaged in satanic practice–but coming from a devout? Xian, “satanic” could mean “Owning Teilhard’s books.”
But here in the Whacked-Out States of America, I’m coming to see the Protestant mainstream adopt ideas that, for about a hundred, two hundred years, were considered Catholic nutjobitude. Particularly, many Protestants have come to see the Pill as just as wrong as abortion. In the seventies, the general attitude was that the Catholic opposition to the Pill was just another way to fill the world with brown babies. WASPs could deal fine with birth control and evil-ution. Then something happened. The anti-Catholic Fundies got some memetic infection from the Catholic nuts.
Being raised even in a marginally Catholic environment–i.e., going to mass maybe twenty times–makes all this seem even stranger.
soulless, religious, ground-rule types scare me. like dawn of the dead. i think it was r.a.w. that read the rules for adultry according to the ayatollas. the discordians couldn`t do better themselves.
so cloning is in then? i`ve always wanted 10 more of me so we can beat any soccer team on earth.
I use dto hate the CC but in many ways they have become much more humanistic compasisonate and reasonable then what AMerican Protestantism is mutating into.
For example they perform genuine works of charity, whears Pat obertson’s operation blessing uses tax-free donations to smuggle diamonds from zaire
The CC came out against the Iraq war
They believe i evolution but not the rapture
etc
I wondered during march 2002 if the priest child-molest stuff was getting so much media play just because th epope had condemned Operation Iraqi Liberation
mebbe i’m too paranoid tho
I’d like to note that JPII was a bit of a Teilhard admirer. He quoted him several times.
The Catechism on the Occult:
A condemnation, but an interesting philosophical justification for it. As a Catholic, I’ve often wondered where the line between asking Saints for their intercession and conjuring up the dead is. I know pagans who look at me funny for how seriously I take novenas, votives, etc. Some think I’m deeper in the occult than they are. Of course these protestant converts to pagan practices.
I’ll agree with Max. Strange to see that JPII was a fan of Teilhard; Benedict seems to me to have a strange Xian-Traditionalism that’s hard for me to understand the origins of; in recent light, the CC does seem like saints. Except for that pedophilia thing, which I think Zac at AB would call direct evidence of Satanic conspiracy. I can’t tell whether I agree or not.
On many levels, yes; on other levels, not at all. Some ancient gnostic practices seem to suggest that the only spritually responsible path to combat the archons was to activate and use the serpent power; the CC doesn’t really have any spiritual “enemies”, stealing Rev Max’s term. If one lives in a benign, Platonic world where there is not “evil” only “privation of light” and the universe is steered/is evolving towards perfection, then, again, occult practices could only be evil. On the other hand, I fail to see how theurgic practice could be deemed evil; this strikes me very much as evidence supporting Nietzsche’s critique of Xianity.