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There's an interesting article in the New York Times today.

Dean, Cornelia and Laurie Goodstein. "Leading Cardinal Redefines 
Church's View on Evolution". New York Times. 9 July 2005

which reports in part:

"An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long 
been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting 
that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be 
incompatible with Catholic faith.

The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian 
who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed 
article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, "Evolution in the 
sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the 
neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random 
variation and natural selection - is not."

(...)

  "American Catholics and conservative evangelical Christians have been 
a potent united front in opposing abortion, stem cell research and 
euthanasia, but had parted company on the death penalty and the 
teaching of evolution. Cardinal Schönborn's essay and comments are an 
indication that the church may now enter the debate over evolution more 
forcefully on the side of those who oppose the teaching of evolution 
alone.

One of the strongest advocates of teaching alternatives to evolution is 
the Discovery Institute in Seattle, which promotes the idea, termed 
intelligent design, that the variety and complexity of life on earth 
cannot be explained except through the intervention of a designer of 
some sort.

Mark Ryland, a vice president of the institute, said in an interview 
that he had urged the cardinal to write the essay. Both Mr. Ryland and 
Cardinal Schönborn said that an essay in May in The Times about the 
compatibility of religion and evolutionary theory by Lawrence M. 
Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, 
suggested to them that it was time to clarify the church's position on 
evolution.

The cardinal's essay, a direct response to Dr. Krauss's article, was 
submitted to The Times by a Virginia public relations firm, Creative 
Response Concepts, which also represents the Discovery Institute."


you should find the entire text here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/science/09cardinal.html

-Kevin

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