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TIL the Vatican’s chief astonomer, Fr. George Coyne said, “Intelligent design isn’t science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.”(r/todayilearned)
You may “not get it” because Catholicism defies modern notions of “progressive” or “conservative.” Pope Francis appears to confound many people by talking peace and love and nonjudgment, preaching against the evils and excesses of capitalism, and then calling abortion “horrific” and expressing “shock” at the idea of gay adoption in Malta. Some people have called him a “liberal.” He is not a liberal. Nor is he a conservative, or a progressive, or a Marxist, or any of the rest of it. He’s the Pope. He is an elected monarch, sitting on a throne that was fifteen hundred years old when the continent he was born on was discovered by the people of Europe. He was made a bishop by a bishop who was made a bishop by a bishop… and so on… who was made a bishop by Christ himself.
The Church has clawed its way through two thousand years of history. It survived the horrors of Roman persecution, the fall of the West, a millennium of dangerous entanglement in European feudal politics, the Great Schism, the Western Schism, the Reformation, and the modern age. The Papacy has raised its fist and sent thousands to conquer foreign lands, it has led armies on horseback, and has lived as a Prisoner in the Vatican. The Papacy supported hundreds of scientists that helped usher in a modern age of astronomy, physics, chemistry, genetics, and science, and fought like a wounded animal against the rise of democracy in Europe and elsewhere.
It, and Catholicism as a doctrine, does not fit your modern political categories. It towers over you–the standing, living pillar of a dead empire. It will not fit in your box.
EDIT: I noted on a popular comment about a week ago that I was a Catholic-educated atheist who planned on sending his kids to Catholic schools. And a few people were all NUH-UH WHY? HUH? Now do you see why? It’s so my kids can know cool stuff that’ll get them a bunch of reddit gold. EDIT 1.5: Scratch that, /u/sailorJery’s sympathy for my unborn kids changed my mind; I guess they’ll go to public school now.
EDIT 2: Again, to be clear, I’m not really religious, but I’m happy just to talk about stuff, which is a great way to make friends.