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What is the Catholic Position on Evolution?
Does the Bible allow a free exploration of the natural evidence?

This is part of a series of articles on Catholics and Creationism.

  1. Catholics and the age of the earth
  2. Old Earth vs Young Earth in the Bible
  3. Were Behemoth & Leviathan dinosaurs?
  4. Catholics and Evolution (This article)
  5. Excerpts from Cardinal Ratzinger's book "In the Beginning"
  6. Church Fathers on the Age of the Earth
  7. Age of the earth timeline
  8. How was the human body formed?

Chat GPT and Wikipedia say the Catholic Church has accepted evolution. This is untrue. There are no magisterial statements about evolution. Three popes have asked the Pontifical Academy of Science to cautiously investigate the claims of evolution and their implications on the faith. These requests are not an acceptance of evolution, nor are they magisterial teaching.

Some aspects of evolution have been disproved by science itself. Evolution fails to explain things like the irreducible complexity of each species, the Cambrian explosion, and how to mutate across disparate species.

The universe had an intelligent designer, God.

Can we reconcile an old earth with a young humanity?

It is a Catholic dogma that polygenism (many first parents) cannot be taught safely. So Adam and Eve were real.

What makes a human is the combination of a human body and a human soul. Animals do not sin. So even if there were creatures resembling humans, they would not be human unless God gave them souls, which would have only been given to two humans, Adam and Eve.

Perhaps God created a species of creatures resembling humans through a series of evolutionary actions over thousands (or millions) of years and then chose Adam and Eve about 6,000 years ago, into which to impart human souls, making them the only humans.

It is worth noting that the scientific community embraced the idea of one set of parents (Mitochondrial Eve, Y-chromosomal Adam) in the 1990's although they argue with each other about all kinds of details.

We have a separate article on the creation of the human body and soul.

Statements from the Popes on science and evolution

Pope John Paul II said this:

Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. [the exact words in French were: Aujourdhui, près dun demi-siècle après la parution de l'encyclique, de nouvelles connaissances conduisent à reconnaitre dans la théorie de l'évolution plus qu'une hypothèse.] It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory...rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based... theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, [that] consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person. (Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996)

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world. A world in which both can flourish... (Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding, 1988)

The Church does not propose that science should become religion or religion science. (JPII)

The unprecedented opportunity we have today is for a common interactive relationship in which each discipline retains its integrity, and yet it's radically open to the discoveries and insights of the other. (JPII)

Science cannot prove or disprove God's existence because God is outside the limits of empirical measurement. Therefore atheism is only a philosophy. Even with all the scientific quotes they use, it is not based on science. We must be very diligent in making sure human secularism based on atheism does not hijack science which is independent of any religious belief, including atheism.

"For my part, when I received those taking part in your Academy's plenary assembly on 31 October 1992, I had the opportunity, with regard to Galileo, to draw attention to the need of a rigorous hermeneutic for the correct interpretation of the inspired word. It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say. In order to delineate the field of their own study, the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences." (JPII, L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 30 October 1996, N.44)

In 1893, forty years after Darwin's The Origin of Species, Pope Leo XII wrote an encyclical Providentissimus Deus in which he said:

The Catholic Church has always taught that "no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language or as the common manner of speech those times required, and indeed still requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst most learned people" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18). 

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