Most non-Catholics were surprised when Pope John Paul II, in a formal statement sent to the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Science on October 23, 1996, announced that evolution was a scientific theory acceptable to the Church. Evangelical leaders, in joining forces with Rome, assured their critics that Catholicism accepts biblical inerrancy. Yet the Canons and Decrees of the Second Vatican Council (Roman Catholicism’s highest authority) declare: "Hence the Bible is free from error in what pertains to religious truth revealed for our salvation. It is not necessarily free from error in other matters (e.g. natural science): [emphasis in original]. ¹⁴ Evolution is "scientific," and the Bible is not infallible when it comes to science.

Allegedly infallible popes have made dogmatic but embarrassingly unscientific pronouncements based upon false biblical interpretations. Choosing to blame the Bible rather than admit the folly of its leaders, Roman Catholicism denies that the Bible is "free from error" in matters of science. Here is a brief excerpt from the Pope’s statement to the Academy:

John Paul II was simply reiterating the official position of his Church. In May 1982, on the hundredth anniversary of Charles Darwin’s death, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences held a conference of scientists in honor of Darwin and issued this statement: "We are convinced that masses of evidence render the application of the concept of evolution to man and other primates beyond serious dispute."¹⁶ As a further example of endorsements by the Roman Catholic Church, in 1967 the New Catholic Encyclopedia had declared confidently:

The shameful case of Galileo explains why Pope John Paul II warned that "the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences…." In enforcement of Church dogma, Pope Urban VIII threatened an elderly and very ill Galileo with torture if he would not renounce his claim that the earth revolved around the sun. On his knees before Rome’s Holy Office of the Inquisition, in fear for his life, Galileo recanted of this "heresy"—with his lips but not in his heart. That the sun and all heavenly bodies revolved around the earth remained official Roman Catholic dogma for centuries, with one "infallible" Pope after another affirming it. Only in 1992 did the Vatican at last admit officially that Galileo had indeed been right.

John Paul II’s quotation of Pope Leo XIII that "truth cannot contradict truth" is a capitulation to science. Rome’s theologians must take care that their interpretation of biblical truth agrees with the latest scientific theories. Yet Peter, who Catholics say was the first Pope, declared that all Scripture was inspired of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Surely the Holy Spirit’s knowledge of science is not dependent upon the theories of scientists, who often contradict one another and must revise their theories periodically! If the Bible is not infallible when it comes to science, then why believe it is infallible regarding salvation or anything else?

Nevertheless, Edward Daschbach, a Catholic priest, without any apparent sense of betraying Peter and the Bible, explains the official Roman Catholic position:

The Pope stands firmly with a theory which contradicts not only the Genesis account of creation but other key portions of the Bible as well. And today’s leading evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, supports the Pope in his endorsement of evolution. An editorial declared: "John Paul II was…reminding scientists that if they were to be faithful Christians there were limits beyond which their science could not take them…no theory of evolution was acceptable…that did not recognize the direct divine origin of the human soul."¹⁹

This issue was discussed at a gathering of mostly professing evangelicals at Biola University in Southern California in mid-November 1996. There were scientists from various fields, along with journalists, theologians, and educators "representing 58 state colleges and universities, 28 Christian academic institutions, and 18 other organizations." While all agreed that God was involved in the process (which Darwinism denies), there was wide disagreement on the extent of that involvement, all the way from a strict biblical creationist view to the belief that God used evolution to create various species over a period of millions of years and finally infused a pair of them with human souls.²⁰ The latter theory is called theistic evolution.

In contrast to the intimidation by science and the lack of confidence in the Bible’s inerrancy to which both Catholics and many Protestants have succumbed, consider these stirring words from the famous preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon: