Reading Reaction 2

Ryan Vachon

Reactions 2: How to teach Science to the Pope

"Creation: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Sorry Darwin huggers, but its not "In the beginning a monkey evolutioned gay marriage."-Stephen T. Colbert

How to Teach Science to the Pope is an article written by Michael Mason built upon a series of interviews of Vatican officials. Mason discusses how the Church has set up a series of universities throughout Rome with the goal of pursuing scientific research with the goal of understanding the work and effects of God.
I came into this article a bit skeptical of how religion and science can be tied together in such a manner. As I read along I began to see and admire how science has been approached by the Catholic Church. Here, scientists are finding ways that science and faith blend together, and they do so in a manner that does not exclude one side or the other and that has some flexibility. I wanted to see if this flexibility in science and faith was simply part of the portrayal or was something that actually occurs.
I discovered a USA Today published Associated Press article from a few years back titled: Vatican academy to ponder evolution; pope addresses limits of science. It looks at how two modern popes have view evolution under the light of religion. “Benedict's predecessor, John Paul, told the academy in 1996 that Charles Darwin's theories on evolution were sound as long as they took into account that creation was the work of God and that Darwin's theory of evolution was more than a hypothesis.” This sort of illustrates an idea stated in the Mason article by Consolmagno: “If you think the universe is fundamentally good and that it’s and expression of a good God, then studying how the universe works is a way of becoming intimate with the creator.”
Ultimately, I found a way that science and religion coexist and a manner that I have often wondered about. Can science be the study of the way the universe works, while theology explains how the universe came into being? Mason has lead me to believe it can happen, and the Associated Press has confirmed that belief.

Associated Press. “Vatican academy to ponder evolution; pope addresses limits of science” USA Today 6 Nov. 2006, 24 Oct. 2008 http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-11-06-vatican-evolution_x.htm


Mason, Michael. "How to Teach Science to the Pope." Discover Magazine. August 18, 2008. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/18-how-to-teach-science-to-the-pope