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!
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The Catholic Church has never defined the question of the age of the earth. Based on sacred Scripture, she has however definitively taught the doctrine of original sin and teaches even still that "Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents."
ReplyDeleteAt this time, the Church allows Catholic theologians freedom in interpreting the Biblical passages as far as possible in accordance with patristic tradition and the best available scientific data on the question of age of the earth and universe.
The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) popes have never spoke ex-cathedra (see: http://www.gotquestions.org/Protestant-Reformation.html ) on the age of the earth or on creation vs. evolution.
DeleteHowever, recent popes have spoken approvingly about evolution without saying it is a fact. Macroevolution postulates lots of time and without it, the evolutionary paradigm is dead in the water. So the recent popes by speaking approvingly of macroevolution are speaking approvingly of an old earth paradigm as well.
I'm a Catholic. About creation itself, the Church has always taught creatio ex nihilo from the very beginning. The First Vatican Council contains some decrees on creation, but these mainly condemn errors like pantheism and naturalism.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the controversy about evolution, Evangelical Christians should see that the Church generally allows freedom at the present day, before things become more clear and a definitive decision one way or the other can be given. This includes both theological and scientific study. Patristic tradition in the Catholic Church is generally for all time the guiding star of Biblical exegesis, and the Fathers tend to favor (although not unanimously) the young earth interpreation. But in order for this to be cogently maintained, one would need solid answers to some of the scientific discoveries of recent times.
I think the below article presents an accurate summary of the Catholic Church's teaching. Would you care to comment on it?
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution
Unknown,
DeleteAs far as Bible exegesis in relation to the link you shared, I would of this: http://creation.com/is-there-a-universal-way-christians-should-interpret-the-bible and http://creation.com/answer-to-philosophy-religion-professor-on-biblical-exegesis-and-the-problem-of-evil and http://creation.com/creation-compromises and http://creation.com/creation-days-and-orthodox-jewish-tradition and http://creation.com/the-bible-and-hermeneutics
Second, I think the root of the problem in terms of Catholics adopting Darwinism is they often lack a respect for the Bible, wish not to be under biblical authority plus they are often ignorant about the creation vs. evolution issue.
For example, I cite this:
"Slightly more than half of the Protestant adults who read from the Bible during the week read along with other members of their household (57%). Catholics were less likely to read the Bible together (35% of those who had read the Bible in a given week had also read it at least once with other household members). Overall, 24% of all Protestants had a family Bible reading time, compared to just 7% among Catholics. (1994)" See: http://www.bibleteachingnotes.com/templates/System/details.asp?id=29183&fetch=7872
In addition, see Catholics and Bible reading written by a Catholic: http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/carlin/05386.html
As far as the recent scientific discoveries, would you be willing to have a cordial debate on the creation vs. evolution issue.
Here is our standard debate offer:
Are you willing to have a debate centered around the 15 questions for evolutionists (see: http://creation.com/15-questions )
via a recorded oral debate which would be distributed to tens of thousands of people.
If you are confident in your evolutionary beliefs, please make the necessary arrangements via this free chat room: http://login.meetcheap.com/conference,89538844 You can make the necessary arrangements with the chat room moderators Shockofgod or VivaYehshua. Alternatively, you can email Shockofgod via his YouTube email at http://www.youtube.com/user/shockofgod
If you want to know more about the debate, any and all questions should be directed to Shockofgod or VivaYehshua
I'm a Catholic. Xavier. I don't hold to the evolutionary paradigm, I don't believe in spontaneous abiogenesis, I believe in the progressive creation where God personally creates, then guides and allows creation to grow, and then steps in to create anew. I believe in the special creation of Adam, and the creation of Eve from his side.
ReplyDeleteI'm skeptical of the idea that natural selection and mutation can explain the diversity of life allegedly descended from a single celled common ancestor. But there are many other facts to take into account, a simple example is stars light years away. You say, well, God created the stars and also the light in such a way as to make it appear by their distance from us that they are billions of years away. Again, while possible, such theological and scientific arguments are by no means self-evident and there is scope at the present time for legitimate freedom on the issue.
The idea that the Catholic Church doesn't respect Scripture is amusing. Some Catholics may not know the teaching of the Church yes, but the Catholic Church reverences Sacred Scripture above all Protestant denominations combined. Cordial discussion entails that Protestants don't make unnecessary and unhelpful strawmen arguments against Catholics, especially when Luther himself (and this while stating St. James wasn't Scripture) granted that "We are forced to concede to the Catholics, that they have the Word of God, that we received it from them, and that without them we should have no knowledge of it at all". I am all for pleasant theological discussion among Christians of different persuasions, but let us have some mutual respect please, that we may fulfil Our Lord's word and prayer "that they all may be one, that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me"
Unknown,
DeleteThank you for your followup comment.
I suggest looking at these resources: http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth and http://creation.com/young-age-of-the-earth-universe-qa and http://creation.com/starlight-time-and-the-new-physics-tour-with-dr-john-hartnett
Next, I don't agree with Luther on everything although I respect his work launching the Protestant Reformation.
Lastly, Paul said to be at peace with all men if possible. Nevertheless, I believe the historical record shows that Roman Catholic Church has exalted Rome/religious leaders/tradition/opinions of men above Scripture and their history reflects this. And I offered evidence of Catholicism in the West widely giving short thrift to Scripture in recent times as well. That is why there are so many ex-Catholics in the West.
Their churches lack vitality and are scandal ridden. Plus, to add insult to injury Catholic leaders tried to coverup these scandals and chose to utilize lawyers, hard ball legal tactics and stonewalling instead.