Reconciling Science, Religion

Vatican Sponsoring Conferences on Works of Darwin and Galileo

VATICAN CITY --

Over the next several months, the Vatican will sponsor academic conferences dedicated to the work of biologist Charles Darwin and astronomer Galileo Galilei, two thinkers whose ideas have posed revolutionary challenges to religious belief.

Featuring distinguished international panels of scientists and theologians, these events are the latest efforts by the Catholic Church under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to affirm that Christian faith and modern science are not at odds, but entirely compatible.

Yet some critics inside and outside the Church insist that such gestures do not satisfy the Vatican's duty to admit its historical role as an obstacle to scientific progress.

Unlike some conservative Protestant churches, which have rejected Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection as contradicting the biblical account of creation, the Catholic Church has a record of guarded tolerance of Darwin's ideas.

Pope Pius XII permitted "research and discussions . . . with regard to the doctrine of evolution" in 1950, nearly a century after Darwin's theory was published; and John Paul II recognized evolution as "more than a hypothesis" nearly half a century later.

The church has won praise from scientists and religious believers in various traditions.

"The ongoing and vigorous engagement of the Catholic Church with evolutionary theory reflects, in my opinion, a fluid and dynamic pathway that combines a profound sense of continuity with its historical past and a living and open, experiential response to . . . the discoveries of science," said Robert J. Russell, founder of the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences in Berkeley, Calif.

Russell, a physicist and minister in the United Church of Christ, will be one of the speakers next month at a Vatican-sponsored conference marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's book, "The Origin of Species."

In recent years, however, with the growing prominence of "creationism" and "intelligent design" as alternative explanations for the existence of humanity and the universe, Catholics have increasingly voiced doubts about Darwin's acceptability.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a friend and former student of Pope Benedict's, provoked controversy with a 2005 article arguing that "neo-Darwinian dogma" is not "compatible with Christian faith" and insisting that the "human intellect can readily discern purpose and design in the natural world."