Over the next several months, the Vatican will sponsor academic conferences dedicated to the work of biologist Charles Darwin and astronomer Galileo Galilei, two thinkers whose ideas have posed revolutionary challenges to religious belief. Featuring distinguished international panels of scientists and theologians, these events are the latest efforts by the Catholic Church under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to affirm that Christian faith and modern science are not at odds, but entirely compatible.
Yet some critics inside and outside the Church insist that such gestures do not satisfy the Vatican's duty to admit its historical role as an obstacle to scientific progress.
Unlike some conservative Protestant churches, which have rejected Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection as contradicting the biblical account of creation, the Catholic Church has a record of guarded tolerance of Darwin's ideas.
Pope Pius XII permitted "research and discussions . . . with regard to the doctrine of evolution" in 1950, nearly a century after Darwin's theory was published; and John Paul II recognized evolution as "more than a hypothesis" nearly half a century later.
The church has won praise from scientists and religious believers in various traditions.
"The ongoing and vigorous engagement of the Catholic Church with evolutionary theory reflects, in my opinion, a fluid and dynamic pathway that combines a profound sense of continuity with its historical past and a living and open, experiential response to . . . the discoveries of science," said Robert J. Russell, founder of the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences in Berkeley, Calif.
Russell, a physicist and minister in the United Church of Christ, will be one of the speakers next month at a Vatican-sponsored conference marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's book, "The Origin of Species."
In recent years, however, with the growing prominence of "creationism" and "intelligent design" as alternative explanations for the existence of humanity and the universe, Catholics have increasingly voiced doubts about Darwin's acceptability.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a friend and former student of Pope Benedict's, provoked controversy with a 2005 article arguing that "neo-Darwinian dogma" is not "compatible with Christian faith" and insisting that the "human intellect can readily discern purpose and design in the natural world."
That the cardinal published his article with the encouragement and assistance of proponents of intelligent design gave the impression that a high church official was endorsing ideas that most scholars reject as unscientific.
Schoenborn has since attempted to clarify his position, insisting that he rejects not the theory of evolution, but arguments that use Darwin's ideas to disprove the existence of a creator-God.
The Rev. Marc Leclerc made the same distinction recently in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's newspaper. "Evolution and creation do not present the least opposition between them," he wrote, "on the contrary, they reveal themselves as entirely complementary."
Leclerc, lead organizer of the upcoming Darwin conference, said last year that no proponents of creationism or intelligent design had been invited to the event.
Yet the Vatican's embrace of Darwin remains a qualified one. The conference is "not, even minimally, a 'celebration' in honor of the English scientist," Leclerc said. "It is simply a matter of taking stock of the event that has forever marked the history of science and has influenced how we understand our own humanity."
By contrast, an official Vatican statement recently declared that the "Church desires to honor the figure of Galileo, innovator of genius and son of the church."
Those words introduced a series of Vatican-sponsored or -supported events to take place this year, which the United Nations has designated as the International Year of Astronomy, marking the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo.
One of the most prominent of these events will be a May conference in Florence, Italy, devoted to the astronomer's conflicts with the Vatican, which silenced and imprisoned him for teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun.
The Church has been trying for centuries to put this embarrassing episode behind it. In 1981, John Paul II established a commission to reevaluate the case, and in 1992 he concluded that Galileo had fallen victim to a "tragic mutual incomprehension." That misunderstanding, the pope said, had given rise to a "myth" that the Church opposed free scientific inquiry.
John Paul's statement failed to satisfy prominent critics, including the Rev. George V. Coyne, former head of the Vatican Observatory, who has called for a fuller recognition that church authorities unfairly prevented Galileo from pursuing his research.
In January 2008, Pope Benedict canceled an appearance at a Rome university after faculty members and students protested his presence as an offense to the "secularity of science and of culture," citing words from a 1990 lecture in which he seemed to justify Galileo's condemnation.
Vatican officials are clearly hoping that this year's observances will clarify once and for all that the church now regards Galileo as not only a great scientist but an exemplary Catholic. Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, has even spoken in terms that evoke sainthood, suggesting that Galileo "could become for some the ideal patron for a dialogue between science and faith."
Yet there is at least one honor for which Galileo will have to wait a little longer. Plans to put up a statue of the astronomer in the Vatican gardens this year have been "suspended," Ravasi said, voicing hopes that the money would be spent instead for educational projects on the "relationship between science and religion."
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