The first reports of the changing of the guard at the Vatican Observatory suggested evil-doing were afoot. The outgoing George Coyne is known as a stalwart defender of science and evolution in particular. But the Vatican later insisted Coyne was just tired of the job, which he had held for 30 years, Plus, it appears the poor guy had just had an operation to remove a tumor in his colon. His replacement, Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, has yet to make any objectionable remarks on that score and the celebratory remarks of some intelligent designer proponents would seem premature. And yet...
And yet, hard on the heels of Coyne's retirement I learn that comes the news that the new pope is gathering his brain trust this week "for intensive discussions that could herald a fundamental shift in the Vatican's view of evolution." Yikes.
B16's predecessor, JP2, had a lot to answer for, particularly his inability to understand how morally bankrupt is the RC Church's position on birth control, but he at least had recognized biological evolution as more than a theory, something that is not incompatible with Catholic dogma. When B16 took over, there was much gnashing of teeth among those of us who were concerned that he wasn't so enlightened. There was, for example, an oblique reference to his belief that humans were not the product of evolution "without meaning" in his first big speech. Since then, though, he'd given no reason to assume he's even given the subject much thought.
But now we have this meeting:
Last week, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria revealed that evolution and creation had been chosen as the subjects for this year's meeting of the Pope's Schulerkreis - a group consisting mainly of his former doctoral students that has been gathering annually since the late 1970s. Other participants at the closed-door meeting will include the president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Peter Schuster; the conservative ethical philosopher Robert Spaemann; and Paul Elbrich, professor of philosophy at Munich University.
and
There have been growing signs that Pope Benedict is considering aligning the Catholic Church more closely to the theory of "intelligent design','... A prominent anti-evolutionist and Catholic scientist, Dominique Tassot, told the US weekly National Catholic Reporter that this week's meeting was "to give a broader extension to the debate".
Schoenberg is the worrying influence here. Consider this quote:
"The alternative to the process of pure chance is not absolute determinism but rather the interaction between the actions of creatures and the divine creator who sustains their actions," Schoenberg told the influential conservative Catholic youth movement Comunione e Liberazione.
Sounds a lot like intelligent design to me.
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Um, why can't you, Pharyngula, Dynamics of Cats, etc. be bothered to do the most elementary amount of research before posting these wild conjectures about how the new pope is about to send the church into the dark ages?
The news of this meeting wasn't on the heels of Coynes retirement, I read about it in one of the national papers (probably the Washington Post) almost a month ago. A quick google search gave me this link from Aug 11.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/197/story_19764_1.html
Furthermore, as your quoted piece states, this is nothing more than an anual meeting of his former students and a few others, not a brain trust gathering to change church doctrine. As can be seen in the piece you linked to, that idea comes from the wishful thinking of a creationist named Dominique Tassot.
Other than the wet dreams and wild speculations of a few creationists (the same ones who predicted vicory in Dover), there is little evidence that the Pope is getting ready to do a 180 on the evolution isue. please, try to apply a little bit of skepticism when dealing with any claim made by intelligent design proponents. (even ones about those wacky people who aren't atheists)
It would be interesting to see what the Jesuits have to say about this. Notwithstanding their loyalty to the pope, they do tend to be more open about science in general. In particular, they have been instrumental (pun intended) in seismology. Seismological observatories have been installed by the Society of Jesus for a century, in diverse places from La Paz, Bolivia to Montreal, Canada. It is hard to imagine a creationist in their midsts that would claim that tectonic plate divergence is only 2000 years old, given that current observations show a definite measurable continental separation of several centimeters a year in places: extrapolate that and you get millions of years of active plate motion.