Letter: Catholics, sciences mix

John Bambanek makes his Catholic faith the focus of many columns, yet in his most recent column he kept that faith in the background. Why? The Vatican itself has increasingly come down on the side of evolution in opposition to John's favored pseudoscience, Intelligent Design. Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis acknowledged evolution as a possible mechanism for creation, while being reserved about other implications. Pope John Paul II's 1996 Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences was less inhibited, stating: "(N)ew knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory."

In 2004, the International Theological Commission, headed by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, released Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, which, besides reaffirming the established validity of evolution, says:"(I)t is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God's providential plan for creation."

Not only does evolution enjoy strong support within the Catholic faith, but using the 'poof' explanation of Intelligent Design is unnecessary for reconciling scientific understanding with the divine act of creation. As Dr. Pawate pointed out on Friday, Intelligent Design is useless as a scientific concept. Since Intelligent Design is a bankrupt idea, why should the University offer a class in it?

Kyle T. Bergan

senior in LAS