From a reader who, since his first name is Sean, and since I can’t be

bothered to do the necessary googling, I am going to assume knows what he’s

talking about:”Mr. Derbyshire—The Catholic Church neither accepts nor rejects the theory

of evolution. In fact, it has no authority to do either. Catholics are

free to accept or reject this scientific theory. The only thing the Church

has said is that the theory of evolution is compatible with the Catholic

faith. The only necessary for Catholics is that God created everything out

of nothing, and that the human soul was created directly by God.”

I have the vague general impression that the Catholic Church, having got far

more bad publicity than it bargained for from the Galileo business, made

some collective decision a couple of hundred years ago to keep itself a good

safe distance from scientific controversies of any kind.

If I am correct about this, I think the decision was a wise one.