Bury the Hatchet

Last year, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Austria butchered a public handling of evolution. Scientist Kenneth Miller is able to recognize good theology and bad science and succinctly captures the cardinal’s problem here.

This year, his position is more sensible and appropriately balanced. Here’s the CNS link, plus a timely quote:

“(T)he cardinal said he did not regret writing The New York Times piece, but said that in retrospect he might have been more nuanced.

‘Perhaps it was too much crafted with a hatchet,’ he said.”

Since an individual hatchet is not likely to evolve, perhaps one might say this change is more indicative of intelligent design.

Pope Benedict’s reunion with some former students will tackle the question of “Creation and Evolution,” as John Allen (and others) have reported. One critic of John Paul II suggests that an Enlightenment mentality has infected certain writings. I’m not surprised at the claim. I’d claim that modern thinking saturates much of the American Catholic Right today. Some folks might be farther adrift from a traditional Catholic sensibility that they suspect. Liturgical neo-rigorism would be one trait suggestive of this.