The Vatican has declared that evolution is compatible with Christianity. They’ve even distanced themselves from “Intelligent Design.” No shit. From the Daily Telegraph:

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said while the Church had been hostile to Darwin’s theory in the past, the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.

Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, added that 4th century theologian St Augustine had “never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish” and forms of life had been transformed “slowly over time”. Aquinas made similar observations in the Middle Ages.

Ahead of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the Vatican is also set to play down the idea of Intelligent Design, which argues a “higher power” must be responsible for the complexities of life.

The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University will discuss Intelligent Design to an extent, but only as a “cultural phenomenon” rather than a scientific or theological issue.

…

Professor Leclerc argues that too many of Darwin’s opponents, primarily Creationists, mistakenly claim his theories are “totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality”.

As a recent convert to the Episcopal Church, I’ve never had a difficult time reconciling science and religion. Indeed, classic scientists approached their work with the attitude that it helped explain the mechanisms used by God, not that understanding the natural world somehow explained away God. Knowing how the grass grows doesn’t make it any less of a miracle that it does.

Perhaps the Vatican’s announcement will increase the percentage of folks in the US who believe in evolution? According to a recent chart in The Economist, of the countries included only Turkey is less accepting of the theory than the United States. Ugh.

Also, the picture in the Telegraph piece is priceless: