In new book, pope quoted as seeing no conflict between faith, science

Published: 2007-04-13

COLOGNE, Germany (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has said that he sees no conflict between faith and science in the exploration of the universe's development, but he has criticized those who see evolution as an explanation for everything. The remarks, made in a discussion he hosted at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, with some of his former students in September last year, have been published in a German book titled "Schoepfung und Evolution" ("Creation and Evolution"). The book was published April 11 by the Sankt Ulrich Verlag publishing house. The students have met annually since 1978 with their former doctoral supervisor, but this is the first time they have published the lectures and discussions. During the discussion, the pope said it was not a matter of "deciding either in favor of a creationism, which out of principle excludes science from its considerations, or in favor of a theory of evolution, which underplays its own gaps and refuses to see questions which go beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science." What was important, he said, was "the interplay of different dimensions of reason, an interplay which opens up into the road to faith."

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