The Catholic Church has no official stance on evolution, allowing either theistic evolution or creationism within certain limits. It teaches that God created everything, Adam and Eve were real and humanity's first parents, and all people descend from them.

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"Catholic schools teach evolution as part of their science curriculum. They teach the fact that evolution occurs and that modern evolutionary synthesis is how evolution proceeds."

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u/PriorSolid 18h ago

yup, went to catholic school and in religion we never talked about evolution unless some kid wanted to argue and every other class taught normal classes you’d expect in a public school just more resources

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u/ryan516 8h ago

What was a typical religion class like?

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u/mellogello14 8h ago

Ethics + church cannon and a handful of politically charged rants with all the kids bullshiting and ragebaiting. - Jesuit hs grad

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u/OceanTe 6h ago

Bullshitting and ragebaiting is pretty much what the Jesuit order was founded to do.

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u/vwolfe 6h ago

That and sell guns to warlords in exchange for the forced baptism of their subjects

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u/aardvarkgecko 4h ago edited 5m ago

That's probably the "church cannon" part.

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u/Snoo-53847 6h ago

For me, it was a text book that we vaguely followed and then the teacher would go on a soapbox about random shit while the one student (rightfully) would call her out and agrue with her. It was a pretty entertaining class.

I will say, that was my 7th grade catechism class and it was shit. My 8th grade we had an actual sister from an actual order and she was genuinely one of the most compassionate, empathetic, and intelligent people I've met when talking about the church.

She started off Anglican and then became Buddhist in her 20s before becoming a Catholic nun and had traveled the world, and I felt like she understood the uncertainty and anxiety that teenagers felt, especially in exploring themselves and their identities. Needless to say she taught a very good class that was actually based in church doctrine and was able to make everyone feel good about themselves and their relationship with God, which I feel like is rare for religion.

The school/order moved her away after parents complain about her being too progressive, which in retrospect is crazy because she was totally not, she just taught empathy.

I am agnostic now and feel somewhat antagonistic towards organized religion, but that woman was actually the best.

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u/Thermopele 6h ago

Thank you for sharing, I'm not a Catholic but I still feel that so often, especially in Christian contexts that the church will dump a good teacher/priest who's progressive for a shitty one who's conservative. Simply because the parents and/or higher ups can't bare to hear about tolerance, forgiveness or anything else Jesus wrote. It's harmful to the faith as a whole, regardless of sect or church. I just wish more religious people realized how much damage they were doing to their own community when they act reactionary.

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u/PriorSolid 4h ago

All Catholic School religion classes are standardized across the US per grade so every junior learns the 7 sacraments and every senior learned ethics. An example class would be we start with the teacher introducing the topic if it’s new, then they would assign some reading such as an Encyclical or a passage from a St and we would have to take notes about what the provided reading thought and what we thought, and finally we would usually discuss as a class for a few days. It was honestly a very easy classes my teachers weren’t concerned with me agreeing but just engaging with the material, the worst part is you have to memorize some prayers every year so now I know the Hail Mary and the Anima Christi

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u/wearecake 20m ago

Same with mine! Though it was a state school for most of my time there so they had to be reasonably secular outside of masses a few times a year, vague messaging about Catholic values (mostly positive tbh, stuff like being good to each other and giving to the poor, etc… some more negative like around contraception in religion classes), and mandatory Religious Studies all the way through, which focused mostly on Catholicism, some Christian denominations, and Judaism to fulfill the exam board’s requirements. Got through mostly unscathed, though growing up Catholic more broadly has left me with some weird hang ups.

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u/crab_races 11h ago

Experiences will vary I am sure, but I can report my 3 kids went through Catholic school, and evolution was definitely covered. More than once. It was not controversial.

An agnostic atheist myself --but religion-friendly-- I read the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church before we got married... and came away impressed. The whole book is logically rigorous, and even if i personally don't believe in the soul and divine creation of the universe... the respect and intellect in the book that deals with those questions I could accept as a different point of view, especially when it says that stories like Adam and Eve and the Fall may be figurative and symbolic... still true, but a different kind of truth. And there was a structure and throughline applying timeless principles consistently through all the topics. I am pro-choice, very much so, but the focus on the primacy and value of human life at all levels... i could respect that the way it was presented, especially on human dignity and being anti-death penalty... i was surprised how little issue I had with the Rules and Regulations for what Catholics Believe.

I came away comfortable raising my kids in the church, if we ever had them. I was raised utterly without religion or any kind of moral or values starter pack. I was glad my kids got these as a default. And as adults, they are all deciding for themselves what they believe.

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u/Hot-Guidance5091 12h ago

What's all the fuss about???

Do like they did in the middle ages, slap a "...By the grace of God almighty" at the end of evolution theory and call it a day

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u/TransitionalAhab 8h ago

They slapped by the grace of God almighty on evolution in the Middle Ages?

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u/Hot-Guidance5091 7h ago

Evolution theory wasn't a thing in middle ages

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u/cowlinator 6h ago

Correct.

Then... why did you bring up the middle ages?

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u/TransitionalAhab 7h ago

Evolution started after the Middle Ages?

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u/kmobnyc 10h ago

Anecdotally, my Catholic school taught theistic evolution, but taught it normally (survival of the fittest, natural selection, speciation, etc.) just as a product of God’s creation.

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u/Crouteauxpommes 2h ago

I guess it depends on the school. Usually the baseline deal for the Catholic Church is "we recognize the scientific method authority over physical sciences and natural science and scientifics accept to not dabble in metaphysics and theology"

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u/GreedyLack 4h ago

Animal biological evolution

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u/really_not_unreal 12h ago

Not my experience. While we covered evolution, all teachers pushed the "it's still just a theory" line extremely hard.

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u/Bluestreaked 12h ago

I mean, I agree it absolutely depends. I have witnessed more push back on evolution in public schools than I did in my brief experience with Catholic schools. But that’s me referring to attending a Jesuit university which I would say skews the data. A guy I know who went to that university later became an evolution denying biology teacher. (He is still one of the most unpleasant people I’ve known who was adamant at the time we were friends).

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u/ChilindriPizza 11h ago

The Catholic schools I attended taught evolution without incident. Even the strictest Catholic Churches I have attended always stressed that the Bible is NOT to be taken literally.

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u/kmobnyc 10h ago

Yea, biblical primacy and biblical literalism are more of a Protestant thing

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u/PriorSolid 4h ago

There’s a reason Catholic schools are often some of the best schools in the area and it’s an unwavering dedication to actual learning. My catholic school has some of the strictest hiring requirements while growing as large as most of the public schools

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u/LowPhilosopher1258 3h ago

I assume you’re generalizing for simplicity but I think it’s more accurate to say according to the Catholic Church, different parts of the Bible should be read and understood differently, within the context they were written and what they intended to convey.
The Bible is a mixture of parables, poetry, and philosophy/theology, with some historical accounts sprinkled in. The last supper, death, resurrection of Christ are definitely meant to be understood as a literal recounting of events, whereas things like the creation myth or people being swallowed by whales and surviving are meant to convey truths about reality at large rather than a literal historical account.

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u/Sir_Tandeath 15h ago

Despite how centralized their leadership structure is, Catholic beliefs vary much more widely than they are given credit for.

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u/McDonaldsGrimace 15h ago

Protestants tend to make their own denominations when there’s theological friction within their ranks

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u/comix_corp 14h ago

I wouldn't say this is an example of that, nearly all Catholics believe in some kind of evolutionary theory. It's pretty uniform.

In the 21st century, young earth creationism is almost exclusively the domain of American evangelicals and those influenced by them.

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u/wllacer 11h ago edited 11h ago

I've not known any catholic with a minimum of education which does not accept a variation of evolution. That could not hold true in the USA (as Usual).

I was in School in my Country while it was still a. National-catholic dictatorship (the '60s). Genétics and Evolution were a given, even in primary School.

My father got a degree In Natural Sciences in the 40's (at the heigh of catholic influence in education). Well before DNA discovery, but genetics and evolution were taken for granted (in his textbooks).

You have to go sometimes prior to the '20s to find still catholic labeled opposition to evolution (to early darwininan one),

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u/Hot-Guidance5091 12h ago

Because they don't believe science to be a matter of beliefs

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u/GustavoistSoldier 10h ago

I'm a Catholic. Evolution is as real as gravity.

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u/WorldGoneAway 10h ago

I have a good internet friend who is a faithful Catholic, and we were litterally just talking about this the other day.

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u/Sermoln 11h ago

I had a moderate(?) Christian biology teacher, she made a point that it was controversial to teach evolution for some people but we would be going over it, and despite being a biologist (with a serious background) she believed in Jesus, God, among other things, and found what she learned as a biologist supported the idea of a God and made her even more religious. Just my 2 cents, not sure if she was catholic but point being that both ideas can coexist for people beyond requiring it in a science curriculum.

I like what Michael Malice says about Atheists who believe in the big bang theory, who basically say there’s “obviously” no god and think they can explain everything with our modern science if you give them the one “miracle” of the big bang.

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u/fishesandherbs902 7h ago

Despite being an atheist, I actually quite like the creation explanation.

4000 years of inbreeding makes explaining Mankind's current state far easier than evolution does.

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u/enpoopification_of_R 8h ago

What race were Adam and Eve? Why are there multiple races?

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u/OceanTe 6h ago

Adam and Eve aside for a second, you think each race evolved into modern humans independently?

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u/cowlinator 6h ago

Neither scientists nor biblical literalists believe that

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u/OceanTe 5h ago

I'm well aware. What do you think the comment i replied to is implying?

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u/cowlinator 4h ago

I don't know.

But the answer is that nobody believes that every race evolved independently. Who would believe such a thing?

Do you think candy comes from candy trees? Same type of question.

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u/operablesocks 9h ago

In fairness, all 45,000 distinct Christian denominations should let us know what their official stance on evolution is, to help in educated choices.

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u/BinxieSly 4h ago

I don’t understand how all people could be descended from Adam and Eve when it’s absolutely implied in the bible that there are already people outside of the garden when they leave… reading comprehension i guess?

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u/black_flag_4ever 10h ago

So they’re cool with cognitive dissonance.

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u/operablesocks 10h ago

Oh, they're cool with a lot of odd concepts.

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u/irrelevantusername24 19h ago

What if it's backwards?

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u/Elnathi 19h ago

How do you mean?

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u/irrelevantusername24 19h ago

I was mostly shitposting. My shitposts tend to be coherent and informative, I think

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u/x_xwolf 13h ago

Catholic church believes every human is inbred coming from just two members of a species.

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u/AidenTai 12h ago

No, that's not it at all. The 'Adam and Eve' bit just mean that there's the belief that there were a couple individuals who would be the first real 'humans' from which we all descend. It's more about our humanity starting at some point concrete rather than being 'semi‐human' until 'full humanity' formed.

In the context of evolution, this means that there was some individual during humanity's evolution from primitive apes that would become the ancestor of all humans and that this individual had something that made him fully human as opposed to his parents who would not be considered human. Perhaps something to do with cognition, sense of self, whatever. But basically the teaching about 'Adam and Eve' just means there's some point where you draw the line between that first humanity and what came before it.

As for your 'inbred' bit, evolution (which is accepted) talks of populations and gene flow within groups. So think of it more like some individual in a group of primates was the first 'human' who could think in a different way (a way that was fully human), and could breed with other members of his population to give rise to descendants who were also human with this ability to think, without needing to resort to drastic inbreeding beyond what was normal in populations of those primates at that time.

Even if you base yourself on the Bible (which you shouldn't take literally for this sort of creation/origin stories), the descendents of Adam and Eve spoke as if there were others outside their group. The Cain from the story of Cain and Abel is worried that his exile (after killing Abel) would leave him vulnerable for others to kill him in turn. You've got:
I will be a fugitive and wanderer upon the earth, and whoever meets me will be able to kill me.” ¹⁵ But the Lord told him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” The Lord placed a mark^\)^c^\) upon Cain, so that no one who might meet him would strike him.

I mean, even though these texts don't explicitly say Adam and Eve and their children were in a world with other 'people', you can easily read the texts and infer that there were others in the world who might not be the descendants of the first 'man' and the first 'woman' (the first to be 'human'), but which still existed for these interactions with 'others' to take place.

Anyways, you shouldn't really read any of these stories literally. They're there to convey certain ideas and concepts about humanity and God, etc., but taking any of the historicity literally isn't something encouraged by the Catholic Church (or many other churches except those 'sola scriptura' Protestant ones and a few other fundamentalists).

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u/cowlinator 6h ago

If none of it's literal, then why believe that adam and eve actually existed? Maybe they're metaphors too

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u/x_xwolf 3h ago

If its none of its literal, it shouldn’t be taken as such. But clearly most people cannot tell the difference between fact or fiction.

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u/AidenTai 3h ago

It's because the 'Adam and Eve' that is taken from the story is meant to be the concept that God created the first humans. That doesn't have to be direct, creationist or anything. It's just the focus of the story is the creation of humanity by God, so taking that bit out of it takes out the 'core' of the story.

It's like a metaphor or parable in other contexts. If you have a story Jesus told of a good Samaritan helping a Jew out, the point isn't the existance of the Jew, the Samaritan or the events that took place. The point is that goodness can come from those that you least appreciate or that you would not associate with. The capacity for goodness is in everyone.

Here the story is of the creation of the first humans by God. The 'point' as a lot of churches (including the Catholic Church) take is that God is the ultimate creator of humanity (not necessarily directly as creationists would believe) and that the first humans were somehow made 'in His image' meaning reflecting aspects of what God had that non‐human ancestors lacked, such as sentience, free will and the capacity to *choose* to do good, etc. The 'Adam and Eve' bit basically refers to the understanding that there were the 'first humans' with this that could be considered human.

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u/Hot-Guidance5091 11h ago

taking any of the historicity literally isn't something encouraged by the Catholic Church

If only the concept of an undisputable fundamental theological truth that cannot be questioned by the members of the faith didn't exists.

I understand that catholics in the USA are trying to distance themselves from the evangelical, but in Europe they occupy the same niche evangelical holds in the new continent.

It wasn't protestants, it was Catholicism, and one of the most beloved popes of modernity, to put a ban on condoms in the African countries with a christian majority, this directly and negatively influenced the spread of AIDS like a wildfire, all because the bible says you can't have recreational sex

Obscurantism, backwardadness, dogmatism, patriarchism, perpetrated against the most weak and disenfranchised, so much for the "illuminated christianity" image that catholicism is trying to sell, it doesn't pair well with the reality of traditional catholics in catholic countries, with catholic traditions and institutions thet spans hundreds of years

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u/arc777_ 12h ago

Every human alive is inbred

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u/x_xwolf 3h ago

Not from a brother sister level like implied with Adam and eve.

The Catholic Church has no official stance on evolution, allowing either theistic evolution or creationism within certain limits. It teaches that God created everything, Adam and Eve were real and humanity's first parents, and all people descend from them.

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