by Robert Sungenis

On the morning of Sunday, April 24, 2005, during his Coronation ceremony homily Pope Benedict XVI made a clear indication that he is distancing himself from the theory of evolution. Translated from the Italian, the pope stated:

“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed , each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”
To help get the point across even better, the pope used a play on words. According to Fr. Brian Harrison who knows Italian and heard the pope speak, the words translated in English as “is willed” are the Italian words “é voluto.” The word in Italian for “evolution” is “evoluzione.” Hence, the intended pun was: we are not the product of “evoluzione” but the product of divine “é voluto.”

Moreover, if the pope were not giving an indication about his reservations concerning the theory of evolution, he simply could have said that we are all willed and loved by God, but to preface this with a denunciation of evolution means that the pope wanted to put in opposition the Christian viewpoint of a created universe over against the haphazard world of chance espoused by evolutionary theory.

Those of us who know the pope are not surprised at this sudden turn of events. Members of our Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation met with the then Cardinal Ratzinger in October 2002 and explained to him the scientific evidence against evolution and the scientific evidence for creation, evidence that prior to our visit the Cardinal had not been made aware.

Thank God we have a pope who is willing to take a critical look at the claims of modern science. Please continue to pray for him that God enlightens his mind.

Robert Sungenis
Advisory Board of the Koble Center
4-25-2005

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