Catholics on Evolution

From Ed Brayton, this note on a Catholic conference on evolution. Quoting from Catholic News Service:

Speakers invited to attend a Vatican-sponsored congress on the evolution debate will not include proponents of creationism and intelligent design, organizers said.

The Pontifical Council for Culture, Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are organizing an international conference in Rome March 3-7 as one of a series of events marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Jesuit Father Marc Leclerc, a philosophy professor at the Gregorian, told Catholic News Service Sept. 16 that organizers "wanted to create a conference that was strictly scientific" and that discussed rational philosophy and theology along with the latest scientific discoveries.

The Catholic Church has accepted the theory of evolution as compatible with Church teachings for quite some time now. I'm sort of surprised that they don't have a definitive statement on it, but more power to them for holding this conference.

Brayton also notes this with some puzzlement:

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the other extreme of the evolution debate -- proponents of an overly scientific conception of evolution and natural selection -- also were not invited.

Brayton thinks it's the reporter "freelancing." I suspect it's a way of excluding people like Richard Dawkins.