Creation – what Catholics MUST believe!!!


-“Adam und Eva im Paradies (Sündenfall), (Adam and Eve in paradise (The Fall)), by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1533, oil on beech wood, Height: 50.5 cm (19.9 in). Width: 35.7 cm (14.1 in), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII addressed the theory of evolution in Humani Generis, where, after noting that “caution must be used when there is … question of hypotheses” in scientific matters touching on religious truths, he wrote:

“the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter — for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.”

In addition, Catholics cannot “embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents.” With these two caveats, Catholics are free to accept, partially accept or reject the theory of evolution.

http://www.dioceseofmarquette.org/UserFiles/FaithFormation/Curriculum_Materials/Appendices/Appendix1e-WhatCathBelieveAboutCreation.pdf

Catholics are required to believe:

1. The creation of all things by God at the beginning of time.
2. The special creation of man.
3. The formation of the first woman from man.
4. The unity of the human race. [Common parents]
5. The original happiness of our first parents.
6. The divine command placed upon man to prove his obedience.
7. Man’s transgression of that command at the instigation of the devil by the serpent.
8. The fall of our first parents from the state of innocence.
9. The promise of a future redeemer.

-Pontifical Biblical Commission, 1909.

Love,
Matthew