Derb,

1. The reader who told you that “the Catholic Church neither accepts nor rejects the theory of evolution” is correct.

2. Your “vague general impression” that, “having got far more bad publicity than it bargained for from the Galileo business,” the Church “made some collective decision a couple of hundred years ago to keep itself a good safe distance from scientific controversies of any kind” is incorrect, and, as stated, risible. Even cursory examination of the Galileo controversy shows it was a lot more complicated than Galileo-right-Church-wrong, and no pope or council has ever suggested the Church keep itself a “safe distance” from any aspect of human endeavor.

What the Church has done, particularly under the present Pope, is to define the spheres and methods of inquiry proper to theology on the one hand and science on the other, while demonstrating support for science per se. Why, for example, does the Vatican support an observatory in Tucson, Arizona? Because, as a Jesuit who works there explained to me, John Paul II took a look at the centuries-old observatory at Castel Gandalfo, the papal summer retreat, then pulled the staff of that observatory together and told them, in effect, to get with the program.