From the Catholic News Service:
Human evolution: Science, faith explore the mysterious emergence of man
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Evolutionary science is still grappling with understanding how the human species, with its unique capacities for language, culture, abstract reasoning and spirituality, may have emerged from a pre-ape ancestor.
While the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that God, "in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life," the church still considers the scientific investigation of the origins of humanity to be a valuable contribution to human knowledge.
In its continuing dialogue with world-renowned scientific experts, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences brought together evolutionary biologists, paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, neuroscientists, theologians and philosophers to discuss the major physical and cultural changes that occurred during mankind's evolution. ...
"Philosophy and theology should ask themselves how they can find a meeting point with and become enriched by the naturalist viewpoint of science, starting from the assumption that the human being is already a speaking, questioning being," he added.
How that speaking, questioning being emerged from a 5 million-year-long lineage of other primates is still a matter of much debate.
It is?
Queue this traditional, learned priest -- who is also a trained scientist. Give them a listen, and discuss:
