"Scientific data supports design in evolution, says cardinal" (2005)

Any evolutionary position that denies the "overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science" and incompatible with Catholic teaching, said Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna.

Many scientists want "to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science," he said in an article in the July 7 New York Times.

"Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity' are not science at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence," he said in the article which quoted the late Pope John Paul II.

Pope Benedict XVI holds the same position as his predecessor, said Cardinal Schonborn.

The article did not discuss the current debate in the United States over some local public school boards that want science classes to incorporate views holding that creation is the result of an intelligent design.

Cardinal Schonborn criticized unnamed "neo-Darwinian" scientists as claiming that "an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection" is acceptable in Catholic teaching.

"The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things," he said.

"Faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real," he said.

"Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true," said the cardinal.

Cardinal Schonborn, who was one of the main editors of the "Catechism of the Catholic Church," said that in the debates over evolution "the Catholic Church is in the odd position of standing in firm defense of reason."

The cardinal said that "neo-Darwinists" are claiming that Pope Benedict agrees with their views about an unguided and unplanned evolutionary process.

In refutation, he quoted from the pope's inaugural homily, in which the pope said: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."

In follow-up remarks published July 11 by Kathpress, an Austrian Catholic news agency, Cardinal Schonborn cited Popes Pius XII and John Paul II as saying that the theory of evolution --- as long as it remains within the realm of science and is not made into an ideological "dogma" which cannot be questioned --- is in conformity with Catholic teaching.

The cardinal quoted Pope John Paul as saying in 1985 that "the properly understood belief in creation and the properly understood teaching of evolution do not stand in each other's way."

Cardinal Schonborn did not include this papal quote in The New York Times article although several quotes from a 1985 papal general audience were included. The 1985 quotes stressed that human reasoning holds that the evolution of living beings points to the existence of a God who created the universe rather than to the formation of life through chance as advocated by materialistic philosophies.

The cardinal told Kathpress that it was the task of philosophy and the theory of science to determine the difference between scientific statements and extrapolations relating to a view of the nature of the world.

Erich Leitenberger, spokesman for Cardinal Schonborn, told Catholic News Service July 11 in a telephone interview that "the cardinal believes that evolutionism as an ideology is to be rejected" because it cannot explain the existence of the soul and the spiritual world.

"He believes in a grand design that is in nature and that makes us understand the existence of the universe and life on earth," said Leitenberger.

Leitenberger confirmed a July 10 New York Times news story saying that Mark Ryland, vice president of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design, helped the cardinal place the article in the Times.

Ryland told CNS that the cardinal's piece was not support for intelligent design. "There is no mention of intelligent design in the essay," said Ryland.

"I see it more as an attack on Darwinism, which argues that there is no intelligent design in evolution," he said. "But it is not an affirmation of any scientific response to Darwin's theory."

Ryland said he recommended the media firm which submitted the article to the Times on Cardinal Schonborn's behalf. He noted that he has known the cardinal for five years.

Both are associated with the International Institute of Theology in Gaming, Austria. Cardinal Schonborn is the chancellor and Ryland is on the board.

---CNS