Last week, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn created quite a stir by claiming that the Catholic Church supports Intelligent Design. (See prior posting.) Now it appears that Washington, DC Cardinal Theodore McCarrick disagrees. KATC News in Acadiana, Lousiana reported yesterday on a press conference held by Cardinal McCarrick at the National Press Club in Washington. McCarrick said that instead of "the beautiful story of Genesis," Catholics can believe in evolution -- as long as they understand evolution to have been guided by God rather than chance. He said: "as long as in every understanding of evolution, the hand of God is recognized as being present, we can accept that."
Cardinal McCarrick was quickly criticized by Ken Ham of Answers In Genesis, a group that supports a literal reading of the Creation Story. Agape Press yesterday quotes Ham as saying: "If you're going to believe in evolution, and say that God took an ape man and made a soul to make Adam, and God took an ape woman and made a soul to make Eve, then the woman came from an ape woman. She didn't come from Adam. And if the woman didn't come from Adam's side, then you've got a major problem." He continued: "The issue about believing in millions of years and evolution undermines biblical authority.... And that's the problem with much of the Church, and the problem you find in the Catholic Church, where the Bible is really not the ultimate authority. It's really the Church [that is considered] the ultimate authority."
