Question: I have seen your answers to the previous evolution questions, and I just wonder what the CHURCH actually says. It seems to me that you are trying to answer this question cautiously, and I don't blame you because it is a very hard one, but what does the Catholic Church actually say about this? (You may have fit that in but I didn't catch it then) I don't see how really evolution fits into what the Bible says. It says that God made men and animals separately [sic]. I mean it didn't say He made an animal into the image of God. It said God made man in the image of Himself. I personally think that the evolution hypothesis goes hand in hand with the big boom theory. It's almost like denying the creator, and it's like how can things just boom and be so perfect!?!?!?

Thank you for this question. First of all, there has been no attempt to be “cautious” with the answers to the previous evolution questions, just thoughtful. The difficulty with the question of evolution is that it is primarily a scientific question, not a theological question. However, since true science is searching for Truth, then it cannot go against the Truth revealed to us by God in the deposit of Faith (Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition) that the magisterium of the Catholic Church interprets for us. In the first Q&A on this topic, I quoted from Matthew Pinto’s book and gave the basics of CHURCH teaching concerning the core of what we must believe theologically. Some of the Catechism references to back up what Matt said are:
CCC#337: “God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity, and order.”
CCC#338: “Nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all of human history are rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun.”
CCC# 343: “Man is the summit of the Creator’s work, as the inspired account expresses by clearly distinguishing the creation of man from that of other creatures.” (italics mine).
There are many others. But Matt Pinto hit the key highpoints, which is what is most important.
The key thing to distinguish here is that the Church is more concerned about WHY man was created than in HOW he was created (in so much as we are discussing an instant event vs. an evolutionary process). Evolution is only concerned with how a being was created. Let’s be clear, evolution is still just a scientific theory. There is no scientific proof that man evolved from apes; there is no “missing link” that has been discovered. But even if at some point there is this proof, would this dispute what the Bible and the Church teach? No, because even if bodily, man developed physical characteristics from apes, at some distinctive time in history, God created man in His image when He breathed a soul into his body and gave man intellect, will and rational thought, the things that truly separate us from the rest of creation. Whether God created man separately at the same exact time he created the other creatures, or at some future time after a physical evolution of the body, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that God created us and that humans are different from apes because of our souls. Without a soul, man is no more than an animal. The Church has not taught definitively on evolution as a scientific theory, because it is just a theory. The Church just continues to maintain the basic key Truths that we need to believe and that is what is most important.
Just because some proponents of evolution deny God or His part in creation, doesn’t mean we have to be afraid of the Truth that can be found in the science of evolution (if there is any). In the end, those with agendas trying to disprove God by proving evolution will still fail, because the discovery of real Truth, whether it be in theology or science, always brings us closer to God.
Finally, the big bang is also just a scientific theory. Even if it can be someday proved that all of matter: planets, stars, water, life forms, etc., began with a single “BANG” somewhere in the middle of no where, we still are left with the idea that something cannot come from nothing scientifically. Even if you wanted to believe in the big bang theory, you could, however, as a Christian we would just have to believe that the matter that exploded, was created out of nothing by God and that God used this method to create the universe.
Ultimately there are two extremes: 1) the atheistic view that says that God does not exist and that creation was a random act and evolution, the big bang, etc. can prove that the idea of God creating the universe is absurd and 2) the fundamentalist Christian view that God created the world EXACTLY like it says in Genesis and anything that tries to prove it otherwise is against God. Period.
The Catholic Church holds the balanced view of the Truth of the situation between these two extremes: God absolutely created the world out of nothing and he created man different from animals because of our souls. If how he did all this can be shown through the Truth of science, then so be it. Genesis is a story about love and sin and our need for redemption. The details aren’t as important in this case as the foundational Truths that are expressed in this story.