Charles Darwin. Image from Wikipedia.
Joel Kontinen
The Vatican's culture minister Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi who recently announced a science conference that will be held in Rome next March, says that evolution is not in conflict with the Bible. He went on to say that the Vatican will nevertheless not apologise to Charles Darwin for rejecting The Origin of Species 150 years ago.
Nowadays the Catholic Church widely accepts the Darwinian idea of evolution although it insists that God has put evolution in motion and also guides it. In 1950 Pope Pius XII said that evolution was a valid explanation of the development of humans. In 1996 Pope John Paul II announced that evolution is “more than a theory”.
English Anglican churchman Malcolm Brown said recently that the Church of England should apologise to Darwin for her negative attititude to Darwinism. However, Charles Darwin has rested in his grave since 1882 and would probably not benefit greatly from apologies.
But as John G. West, who has a doctorate in political science, documents in his book Darwin Day in America, the implications of the theory of evoluution on society have been extremely negative.
Darwin should have apologised for even publising his views in the first place. Darwinism encouraged eugenetics and Nazism. It provided the pretext for liberating criminals from guilt. Some evolutionary psychologists began to look for models in the animal kingdom. They ”discovered” that rape and unfaithfulness were natural since animals indulged in them. Evolution also inspired Alfred Kinsey to suggest that bestiality and paedophilia were perfectly acceptable.
It thus seems that neither Catholics nor Protestants should have any reason to apologise to Charles Darwin or even celebrate his anniversary.
Sources:
Muehlenberg, Bill. 2007. A review of Darwin Day in America. By John West. Culture Watch. http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2008/01/30/a-review-of-darwin-day-in-america-by-john-west/
New Scientist. 2008. Vatican says it does not owe Darwin an apology. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14751?promcode=nletter&DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn14751
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