James A. Wiseman, "Pope advocates conversation between scientists" (2005)

Even before white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a favorite for election to the papacy.

Ratzinger’s name on the short list prompted commentators to wonder how he would compare to Pope John Paul II in matters of church doctrine, openness to other faiths and powers of personal communication. Less discussed but equally important is what the new Pope Benedict XVI will have to say about the relationship between science and religion.

Benedict has expressed his interest in this dialogue on several occasions, and his predecessor often spoke of it as well. John Paul II became especially well-known for two addresses he gave to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the 1990s. In one, delivered on Oct. 31, 1992, he tried to lay to rest the harm that had been done by the church’s condemnation of Galileo in the 17th century. During that address, John Paul II acknowledged that Galileo had been far more adept at scriptural interpretation than were many of the theologians of his day. Although a few critics carped that the pope’s admission was too little, too late, many more admired the forthrightness with which he took up an issue that had been festering for centuries.

Four years later, in another address to the same academy, John Paul II said that evolution is “more than an hypothesis.” Rather, he said, it is a theory well supported by findings from many branches of scientific endeavor.  Adding that there are several theories of evolution, John Paul II said that the only ones compatible with Christian faith are those that do not reduce the soul, the spiritual component of human beings, to a mere epiphenomenon of the material without reality of its own.

Despite his image as a hard-line conservative, there is every reason to believe that the new pope agrees fully with what John Paul II said in both those addresses. In fact, Ratzinger dealt specifically with evolution in his book titled In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall.

Regarding the “mechanisms” of evolution, he said that it is for the natural sciences to explain how new branches shoot out from the tree of life. Such issues are not matters for faith. On the other hand, he wrote, “We must have the audacity to say that the great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error.” They point to a “creating Reason and show us a creating Intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before.”

Ratzinger, who was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, also discussed its work in an interview he had with journalists while on a trip to Spain. “To date, it was only an assembly of scientists — physicists, biologists, et cetera,” he said. “Now, philosophers and theologians have also joined. We have seen that dialogue between the sciences and philosophy and theology is difficult because they are totally different ways of addressing reality, with different methods.”

He used the example of a scientist who seemed torn between two different worlds: In the world of the natural sciences, this particular researcher found there is “no freedom, no presence of spirit,” whereas in the world of his own experience he realized, “I am a man and I am free.”

Ratzinger said that we really ought not live in this way because it leads to a kind of permanent schizophrenia. Rather, “We must seek the way in which one [side] discovers the rationality of the other and [must] develop a genuine dialogue.”

Because there is no preordained formula for accomplishing this, he said it is extremely important that scientists meet with philosophers and theologians in such settings as the regular meetings of that pontifical academy. “In this way, they can discover that both are expressions of authentic reason.” So, too, in university settings the various faculties must be in regular contact so as to “learn to think with others and to find the unity of reality.”

In light of these comments, it is reasonable to expect that Pope Benedict XVI will regularly attend the meetings of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences just as his predecessor did. His former role as a close papal adviser affords him familiarity with the Vatican’s views on scientific issues like cloning, in vitro fertilization and stem cell research.

Whether Pope Benedict XVI, who has said he feels the church has already bent to relativist pressure, will strengthen those pronouncements remains to be seen.