[*] Speaking of evolution …

Faithful reader GeneMBridges gave me the heads-up that apparently the Roman Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible. At least, that's what the headline from the Times UK Online says.

Here are a couple of things you should think about before, during and after reading that story:

ITEM: The doctrinal statements listed in that story are not new statements from the Roman Catholic church. It's been a long time (if ever) since Rome upheld the categorical, literal truth of Genesis 1-3. So to say that Rome has "changed" or "no longer" does something here is an overstatement.

ITEM: Supeficially, the statement attributed to the Bishops as “We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” is not really very controversial. For example, any decent Protestant might tell you that the parables of Jesus are not descriptions of historical events – they are a different genre than an historical account, and as such testify to truth in a different way than, for example, the "begats" in Matthew.

ITEM: The article I read there at the UKTimes Online was, frankly, inflammatory toward Catholics. It's one thing to reject Rome as a Christian communion, and it's another to reports facts haphazardly or as if statements which have been in-play in official teachings from Rome for decades are new revelations that leave the Catholic at a severe loss. Look: whatever Rome thinks of Scripture, it doesn't teach that Scripture is complete, and it doesn't teach that Scripture is clear. It teaches that Scripture requires the Tradition to fill in the gaps – Scripture may be true, but that doesn't mean it is infallible or inerrant. That's not new. And the things reported in that article are not themselves new. To report them as a new wrinkle is not to know very much about the last 500 years of history and why Protestantism exists at all.

So that's what I think. Somebody else might have more to say about that, but I think dissecting that article is not a great use of time. If you are interested, you should go visit the Catholic Catechism, then re-read that article and see if you found anything that those who wrote the catechism didn't already say.