Church needs better evolution education, says bishops’ official

Church needs better evolution education, says bishops’ official
(Catholic News)

“Denying that humans evolved seems by this point a waste of time,” he said without mentioning specific controversies in the United States.

In recent years, conflicts have arisen in several parts of the country questioning whether evolution should be taught in public schools as scientific fact. In January, the public school board in Cobb County, Ga., voted to appeal a federal judge’s order to remove stickers on science textbooks which said that “evolution is a theory, not a fact.”

Byers said, “The official church sees little danger in evolution.” He cited a 1996 speech by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Science and a 2004 document, “Communion and Stewardship” by the Vatican’s International Theological Commission.

The 2004 document “properly recognizes evolutionary theory as firmly grounded in fact,” he said.

But “our educational leadership has been very slow to correct the anti-evolution biases that Catholics pick up from prominent elements in contemporary culture,” he said.

Death to prominent elements in contemporary culture! Let’s hear it for sensible Primates!