Papist Quote of the Day

From the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, when asked if the Roman Catholic Church would issue an apology to Darwin like the Anglicans have done:

"Maybe we need to abandon the habit of issuing apologies and treating history as if it were a court always in session," Ravasi said. (EarthTimes)

Here, here.

More:

[Ravasi] was speaking to journalists about a conference entitled Biological Evolution: Facts and Theories. A Critical Appraisal 150 years after The Origin of Species due to be held in Rome from March 3 to 7, 2009.

The congress has been organized by the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, and will include scientists, philosophers and theologians from around the world.

Ravasi stressed that, unlike many Protestant Christians, the Roman Catholic Church never condemned Darwin nor was his book, the Origin of the Species, placed on the church's list of banned books.

... "Science can purify religion of superstition, but religion can purify science from false absolutes," Ravasi said, quoting John Paul.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II publicly expressed regret on how the Catholic Church in the 17th century dealt with Italian scientist Galileo Galilei who was forced to retract his observation that the Earth and the other planets revolved around the Sun.