Letters

Not ‘Big News’

Posted

To the Editor:

Catholic New York’s front-page headline in the October 30 issue was both distressing and disappointing. Distressing because it inferred that it was big news to say that evolution and the Big Bang theory were not at odds with God and big news because Pope Francis said it was so.  More than 70 years ago, Pope Pius XII in his allocution to the Papal Academy of Science opened the way for a moderate evolutionism. Evolution was further discussed in his encyclical Humani Generis and still later in the Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church. A position more than 70 years old hardly makes it new.

We all know that the secular press lacks nuances in its presentations, especially in things Catholic. We have a right to expect a fair, well-rounded and nuanced presentation of the teachings of the Church in a Catholic newspaper, especially a diocesan one.  Your headline seems to follow the lead of the secular press in presenting whatever Pope Francis says about Church teaching as new and controversial.

Sister Jean Flannelly, S.C.

Bronx

The writer is executive director for mission at the College of Mount St. Vincent.