Calls for More Science, Less Ideology
RIMINI, Italy, AUG. 25, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is proposing an ideology-free debate on the theory of evolution, and wants to clarify the Church's position on the topic.
The archbishop of Vienna presented his proposal Thursday to a packed auditorium at the Meeting of Friendship Among Peoples, organized by the Communion and Liberation Movement in Rimini, Italy.
At a press conference Wednesday, the cardinal, explained that the Church does not hold the position of "creationist" theories on the origin of life and man, which draw scientific consequences from biblical texts.
In fact, he added, there is "no conflict between science and religion," but, rather, a debate "between a materialist interpretation of the results of science and a metaphysical philosophical interpretation."
Cardinal Schönborn, who sparked a worldwide debate in 2005 with an article in the New York Times on the subject, called for clarification of the difference between the "theory of evolution" and "evolutionism," the latter understood as an ideology, based on scientific theory.
By way of example, the cardinal mentioned Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who saw in the publication of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species," "the scientific foundation for their Marxist materialist theory. This is evolutionism, not theory of evolution."
The archbishop of Vienna warned against the application of this evolutionist ideology in fields such as economic neo-liberalism, or bioethical issues, where there is the risk of creating new eugenic theories.
More than a theory
Journalists asked the cardinal what Pope John Paul II meant in his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in Oct. 1996, when he spoke of evolution as "something more than a theory."
Cardinal Schönborn explained that the phrase meant that "the theory, as scientific theory, has been expanded with new scientific data, but of course that phrase cannot be interpreted as an 'Amen' of the Catholic Church to ideological evolutionism."
The archbishop of Vienna noted a document published by the International Theological Commission in 2004, with the approval of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, entitled "Communion and Service: The Human Person Created in the Image of God."
He said the paper clarifies the distinction between ideology and science, and "gives an answer to those who wished to interpret John Paul II's phrase in an ideological sense."
"What I desire intensely is that, also in school programs, questions be explained, at the scientific level, opened by the theory of evolution, such as the famous question of the missing rings," Cardinal Schönborn said.
The cardinal said that 150 years after Darwin's theory, "there is no evidence in the geological strata of intermediate species that should exist, according to Darwin's theory."
He continued: "He himself said in his book that this is a hole in his theory and asked that they be found.
"This should be discussed in a serene manner. If a theory is scientific and not ideological, then it can be discussed freely."
