Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!bbncca!sdyer From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Pontifical Academy of Sciences Message-ID: <1186@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 19:40:06 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1186 Posted: Mon Dec 3 19:40:06 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 08:46:40 EST References: <281@uf-csg.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 19 The modern, post 18th Century, Roman Catholic Church has always deferred comment on the subject of evolution and the origins of life. While the Church is "conservative" in many senses, it has never subscribed to the tenets of fundamentalism and literalism. Scientific inquiry which does not directly conflict with matters of morals (oh, I dunno, no fetal brain transplants, or some such) has always been welcomed as a manifestation of man's search for intellectual truth within God's Creation. Faith and scientific knowledge are not seen to be at opposites, but are always in the position to be resolved, a modern manifestation of the Thomist arguments on Faith and Reason. The Church may remark on abuses of scientism and technology, warning of the pitfalls of reductionism, but it rarely proscribes scientific inquiry. For example, even its rather Neanderthal attitudes on contraception would not necessarily limit basic research on fertility. -- /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbncca.ARPA