In 1988, in an official message to George V. Coyne, the head of the Vatican Observatory and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, Pope John Paul II called for an open assessment of the relations between theology and science¹.  Stressing that there was no need for conflict between Catholic theologians and the natural scientists, he advocated honest and in depth conversation: “Knowledge of each other leads us to be more authentically ourselves” (M 14).

To that end, the Vatican Observatory has sponsored conferences with the Berkeley, California based Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in which philosophers of religion, theologians (Catholic and Protestant), and scientists are invited to search for a more thorough understanding of one another’s disciplines. In 1996 VO and CTNS sponsored a dialogue of biologists and theologians on biological evolution.

Pope John Paul II gives his symbolic affirmation of these meetings of international scholars by providing conference rooms in the papal residence at Castel Gandalfo and by hosting a special audience for the participants at the Vatican. The Pope believes that there are positive outcomes to conversation between scientists and theologians: “a rational unity between science and religion,” can be achieved, which would result not in identity or assimilation but in dynamic interchange, with each “radically open to the discoveries and insights of the other” (M9). This is important because:  “[s]cience can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutisms. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish” (M13).

Pope John Paul II treated the question of evolution in a 1996 address given at the annual assembly of the members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences².   In that address he added more force to Pius XII’s 1950 acceptance of evolution as a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study. Pope John Paul II stated that biological evolution is acceptable as long as biological evolutionists do not promote materialist and reductionist explanations that are dismissive of the God-given dignity of the human person and the spiritual nature of Homo sapiens sapiens. Science, although enormously valuable in the human pursuit of truth about nature cannot assume to give a full account of all aspects of reality, including especially the reality of what it means to be a human person with a transcendent origin and destiny – a unique individual in relationship with God.



¹ “Message of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J., Director of the Vatican Observatory,” in John Paul II on Science and Religion, Reflections on the New View from Rome, edited by Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, S.J. and George V. Coyne, S.J.(Vatican City State:Vatican Observatory and Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). (M refers to page numbers in the original text).

² John Paul II, “Message to Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution,”  Origins 26 (1996), 3