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NPR and the Darwinist Effort to Spin the Catholic Church

NPR and the Darwinist Effort to Spin the Catholic Church.

NPR had a story Sunday by Jason De Rose on the Catholic Church’s position on evolution. The story was unbalanced, but it did report accurately, as some news outlets did not, that when Cardinal McCarrick of Washington spoke at the National Press Club last week he essentially backed up Cardinal Schoenborn. A theologian at Catholic University does the same in the story. On the other hand, the NPR piece takes the view that this is now an issue where the church is now opposed to “scientists.” It never occurs to De Rose to suggest that some scientists agree with the church and, if interviewed, would contend that Darwinists have been claiming more for their materialist philosophy than their science can justify by the evidence.

So, instead, we have “Catholic Ken Miller” of Brown brought out as usual to say that he is dismayed. So is a theology professor at Georgetown University (are we surprised?). And they both are particularly alarmed, reports Jason De Rose, that the church may be adopting support for “intelligent design.” Of course, Mr. De Rose never thought to ask a scientist in the intelligent design movement about this. Where was biologist Michael Behe, for example, in the NPR story? In any case, Schoenborn’s essay speaks of “design”, not necessarily “intelligent design”, per se.

Plainly, the cheerleaders for scientific materialism are anxious. In the NPR piece De Rose hypes a mere letter from Miller and two other Darwinists (only one apparently a practicing Catholic) that was sent a few days ago to the Pope. The epistle writers ask the pontiff to “clarify” the church’s position.

They may not have thought this through, however. Do they really want the Pope to clarify Church doctrine further? They could be sorry if he does.

Nonetheless, watch out: NPR’s next story will probably be an editorial chastising the Catholic Church for meddling in science!

Bruce Chapman

Cofounder and Chairman of the Board of Discovery Institute
Bruce Chapman has had a long career in American politics and public policy at the city, state, national, and international levels. Elected to the Seattle City Council and as Washington State's Secretary of State, he also served in several leadership posts in the Reagan administration, including ambassador. In 1991, he founded the public policy think tank Discovery Institute, where he currently serves as Chairman of the Board and director of the Chapman Center on Citizen Leadership.

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