The Catholic church and evolution

The Catholic church released a statement recently saying that Christianity is compatible with evolution. I released one saying that the two are not at all compatible. Genesis says that God made man in His own image (a moral entity), as male and female, with the ability to reproduce after their own kind (within their own species). Jesus affirmed this by saying “In the beginning God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). The Scriptures also differentiate between the flesh of animals and the flesh of human beings--"All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds” (1 Corinthians 15:39). The closest they can get for human skin grafts is pigskin, and even then the graft may not take.

William Donahue, the eloquent and intelligent president of the Catholic League responded with the heading “The simple mind of Ray Comfort,” and rightly called me a “Protestant.” He said, “Protestant author Ray Comfort recently said that ‘the Vatican has chosen to officially believe Darwin rather than Jesus.’ He accuses the Catholic Church of failing to exercise ‘common sense’ and of failing to think ‘too deeply’ about evolution.

“The best-selling author doesn’t mince words: ‘The Vatican, in essence, is saying ‘Don’t believe Jesus or Genesis. Believe Darwin instead.’ He even goes so far as to say that ‘In the name of diversity, the Vatican is encouraging atheism, and that’s a terrible betrayal of Christianity.’

“Comfort is wrong. The fact is that in the 1950s, Pope Pius XII said there was no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of faith, as long as God was not excluded. Pope John Paul II affirmed this teaching in the mid-1990s.

“In other words, the Catholic Church teaches that God is the author of all creation. How stages of human development have unfolded is a legitimate area of scientific inquiry, and it has nothing to do with rejecting God as the Creator. Moreover, to say that one must believe in either Jesus or Darwin smacks of an inability to ‘think deeply’ about the subject. Even more preposterous is the assertion that the Vatican is encouraging atheism. What’s next? The pope is the Anti-Christ?”