Pope Benedict XVI resigned. There is going to be a new Roman Catholic Pope soon.
Question: Is Darwinism going to have less and less influence in Roman Catholicism?
Previously, in our article entitled Roman Catholic theistic evolutionists vs. Protestant creationists: Who will ultimately prevail? it was argued that global creationism would continue to grow and prevail against theistic Darwinism. See: Roman Catholic theistic evolutionists vs. Protestant creationists
With that being said, Darwinism's hold on the Roman Catholic Church will significantly diminish over time.
Consider this excerpt from a February 13, 2013 article entitled Pope Benedict XVI Resigns: Church Growing in Third World, But European Cardinals Control Power:
The Catholic laity is growing outside Europe, while shrinking in the traditional strongholds of Italy, France, Spain, Poland and Germany, homeland to the resigning pope, Benedict XVI.Given that Pope Benedict XVI stacked new appointments within the College of Cardinals with Europeans (mainly Italians), it seems likely that the new pope will be a European, but there is no guarantee. Yet, it is only a matter of time before a non-European is elected Pope. And given that Darwinism is strongest in Europe that cannot be a good thing for Darwinism.
In fact, according to Pew, the number of European Catholics has shrunk by more than half over the past century.
"The church in the developing world, like South America, like Africa, is of great joy and momentum and of numbers," said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. "Therefore, attentiveness to the developing churches is going to be, I'm sure, on the docket of the cardinals as we meet for the conclave."'
European Darwinism in Roman Catholicism is showing cracks
Even European Roman Catholicism is showing cracks in terms of holding to a strict adherence to Darwinism.
On December 19, 2009 the pro-evolution website Panda's Thumb reported in an article entitled Creationism at Italian Science Agency: According to Science, the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy helped to fund and promote a creationist book that was edited by a vice-president of CNR.So we know that recently creationist thought was present at a top level of the Italian scientific community. And Italians still have a significant influence on Roman Catholicism.
Reuters reported in 2007:
"Bible-based criticism of evolution, once limited to Protestant fundamentalists in the United States, has become an issue in France now that Pope Benedict and some leading Catholic theologians have criticized the neo-Darwinist view of creation...Growing influence of evangelicalism in Europe
These American concerns caught notice in Europe after Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a confidant of Pope Benedict, attacked neo-Darwinist theories in 2005 in what seemed to be a move to ally the Catholic Church with "intelligent design."...
Herve Le Guyader, a University of Paris biology professor who advised the Education Ministry on the Atlas, said high school biology teachers needed more training now to respond to the increasingly open challenges to the theory of evolution.
It seems probable that the reason why European Darwinism within Catholicism is showing is cracks is due due to the growth of biblical creationism in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
Professor Eric Kaufman wrote concerning European Christianity:
What of European Christianity? The conventional wisdom holds it to be in free fall, especially in Western Europe. (Bruce 2002) This is undoubtedly correct for Catholic Europe, while Protestant Europe already has low levels of religious practice. Yet closer scrutiny reveals an increasingly lively and demographically growing Christian remnant. Several studies have examined the connection between religiosity - whether defined as attendance, belief or affiliation - and fertility in Europe. Most find a statistically significant effect even when controlling for age, education, income, marital status and other factors...Professor Eric Kaufman, who teaches at the University of London, Birbeck College, wrote concerning Europe in his paper entitled Shall the Righteous Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century :
Moving to the wider spectrum of European Christianity, we find that fertility is indeed much higher among European women who are religious...
Today, most of those who remain religious in Europe wear their beliefs lightly, but conservative Christianity is hardly a spent force. Data on conservative Christians is difficult to come by since many new churches keep few official records. Reports from the World Christian Database, which meticulously tracks reports from church bodies, indicates that 4.1 percent of Europeans (including Russians) were evangelical Christians in 2005. This figure rises to 4.9 percent in northern, western and southern Europe. Most religious conservatives are charismatics, working within mainstream denominations like Catholicism or Lutheranism to ‘renew’ the faith along more conservative lines. There is also an important minority of Pentecostals, who account for .5% of Europe’s population. Together, charismatics and Pentecostals account for close to 5 % of Europe’s population. The proportion of conservative Christians has been rising, however: some estimate that the trajectory of conservative Christian growth has outpaced that of Islam in Europe. (Jenkins 2007: 75).
In many European countries, the proportion of conservative Christians is close to the number who are recorded as attending church weekly. This would suggest an
increasingly devout Christian remnant is emerging in western Europe which is more resistant to secularization. This shows up in France, Britain and Scandinavia (less
Finland), the most secular countries where we have 1981, 1990 and 2000 EVS and 2004 ESS data on religiosity...
Currently there are more evangelical Christians than Muslims in Europe. (Jenkins 2007: 75) In Eastern Europe, as outside the western world, Pentecostalism is a sociological and not a demographic phenomenon. In Western Europe, by contrast, demography is central to evangelicalism’s growth, especially in urban areas. Alas, immigration brings two foreign imports, Islam and Christianity, to secular Europe.
We have performed these unprecedented analyses on several cases. Austria offers us a window into what the future holds. Its census question on religious affiliation permits us to perform cohort component projections, which show the secular population plateauing by 2050, or as early as 2021 if secularism fails to attract lapsed Christians and new Muslim immigrants at the same rate as it has in the past. (Goujon, Skirbekk et al. 2006).Creationism is growing in Latin America and its potential effect on Latin American Catholicism
This task will arguably become far more difficult as the supply of nominal Christians dries up while more secularisation-resistant Muslims and committed rump Christians comprise an increasing share of the population.
Biblical creationism is seeing a significant rise in Latin America and the trend appears to be favoring a continued expansion. In fact, current conditions in Mexico and recent events in Central and South America suggest that creationism could see a dramatic rise in Mexico and Brazil.
Of course, should a new Pope come from Latin America in order to shore up Latin American Catholicism this is not good news for Darwinism as a new pope from Latin could easily be influenced by creationist material and thought.
For more information see:
Rise of young earth creationism in Mexico
Creationism is growing in Brazil and spilling into its neighbors
Creation Ministries International website resources
Creation Ministries International website
Creation vs. evolution answers
Question Evolution! Campaign
15 questions for evolutionists
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 1 - Questions 1-3
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 4–8
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 9-15
Refuting evolution
Evidence for Christianity
Creation Ministries International Question Evolution! Videos
15 Questions Evolutionists STILL can't answer!
Picture and graphic credits
1. St. Peter's square, Vatican City Rome, source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Peter%27s_Square,_Vatican_City_-_April_2007.jpg
| Description |
English: A 5x6 segment panoramic image taken by myself with a Canon 5D and 70-200mm f/2.8L lens from the dome of St Peter's in Vatican City in Rome.
Français: Image panoramique composée de 5x6 photos prises par David Iliff à l'aide d'un appareil Canon 5D et une lentille 70-200mm f/2.8L à partir du dôme de la Basilique Saint-Pierre au Vatican.
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| Author | Diliff |
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| Camera location | 41° 54′ 7.70″ N, 12° 27′ 13.30″ E | This and other images at their locations on: Google Maps - Google Earth - OpenStreetMap | (Info) |
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| Panorama-overlay | view this Panorama with Wikipedia-articles overlay |
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License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
2. Latin America map
source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Latin_America_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg
| Description |
English: Latin America (orthographic projection)
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| Date | 2009 | |||
| Source | Own work, |
License: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
