WASHINGTON -- Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said Catholics don't have to believe in Creationism -- the Bible's account of God creating Adam and Eve and the universe in six days.
McCarrick told reporters at the National Press Club that instead of what he called "the beautiful story of Genesis," Catholics can believe in evolution -- as long as it's understood to have been guided by God rather than chance.
The archbishop of Washington said that was the view of the late Pope John Paul II, which was echoed last week by a leading European cardinal.
Cardinal McCarrick said the church cannot accept the belief that "this is all an accident." But he added that "as long as in every understanding of evolution, the hand of God is recognized as being present, we can accept that."
This, from the same bunch who brought you "Let's Pretend Our Pedophile Priests Don't Exist And Just Reassign Them To Another Parish Where There's Fresh Pickings."
If God says in the Bible that it took Him six days to do it, I have no reason to believe otherwise until He tells me otherwise. Here's my caveat: I wasn't there with my stopwatch when He did it. I don't know. And I do know that sometimes He tells us things in ways we can grasp, because our finite minds can't handle the whole thing. Case in point -- the parables that Jesus told. No, I don't think the Genesis story is a parable. But I do know that, with my own kids, I sometimes simplify the explanation of complex concepts so that their minds can handle it. Like the Emily Dickinson poem on the sidebar of this blog, I believe that the best teachers tell the truth in a way that their pupils best receive it. I would never tell my students, or my children, something untrue, such as "The stork brings babies," in order to avoid telling them something I don't want to have to explain to them... but do I tell my five-year-old every detail? No way. He's a bright kid, but he's still way too little to handle some information.
God is my Dad, and as a Very Good Daddy, He understands my little brain and heart enough to know what information I need. I trust Him to give it to me. I know without a shadow of a doubt that He created me, and that it happened the way He describes it in Genesis. Do I think that's the whole story? Honestly, it doesn't matter to me.
It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.
1 Corinthians 13:11-12
That works for me.
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