Did you see that the Pope has informally embraced the theory of evolution? Said John Tagliabue in the New York Times, "Nearly a century and a half after Darwin's Origin of Species, Pope John Paul II has put the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church firmly behind the view that the human body may not have been the immediate creation of God, but is the product of a gradual process of evolution. With a formal statement sent to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences . . . the pope said that `fresh knowledge leads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just a hypothesis' (Houston Chronicle, October 25, 1996, Al).

The Pope should be an expert on evolution. After all, his very office is the product of a process of evolution. By exchanging the sacred for the secular, by replacing divine truth with human traditions, by adopting idolatrous pagan myths and superstitions and attempting to weave them into the fabric of faith, the whole Catholic structure has evolved.

All of my life, I have heard the old statement, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle." Now, according to the Pope, I may not be his uncle, but I may be his nephew! That just may be an improvement. It does not take too much to flatter some of us.

If the poor, old Pope can see an inch past his nose, he must see what is coming. If the Genesis record is not a real revelation of creation, what about the virgin birth? Surely, a God who could cause a baby to be born of a virgin could create a man from dirt and a woman from his rib. However, if that is not what happened, as the pope now seems to suggest, how are we to be assured that Jesus' birth is an actual, factual account?

If Genesis is junked and jettisoned, is the virgin birth the next thing to be aborted? If not, how shall the Pope reassure us? Genesis is written as history, or as an account of events that literally transpired. So is the virgin birth. If the creation of Genesis is a fabrication, is the birth of Jesus a prevarication? When these questions arise, as surely they will, to what will the pope appeal? Or will he smile, doff his beanie, and declare the virgin birth null and void?

If a man could evolve from the apes, why could not a super-human type man like Jesus evolve from man? If man is a product of evolution, is Jesus? I find it hard to believe that the genius that is man came from blind chance and the beasts of the field, but I am told that it is so. Well, if it is, will I next be told that I must believe, as improbable as it seems, that Jesus did not actually come from God and a virgin's womb, but that he is the finished product of a monkey's mutation? Either way, the Pope's tacit acceptance of evolutionary thinking tells me that he has been smelling too much of his incense canisters lately. They ought to be careful how they wave those smoky things around when he is near.

Guardian of Truth XL: No. 24, p. 1
December 19, 1996