Rafael A. Martinez Romeo

As a well-established scientific fact, biological evolution still provokes heated debates all over the world about its compatibility with religious beliefs. Moreover, the Darwinian theory, although remaining the general framework of life sciences, is in itself undergoing a sort of evolution by virtue of recent advancements in different biological disciplines, which lead to better assess the ideas that Darwin introduced more than 150 years ago. Finally, both the scientific fact of evolution and the Darwinian theory are concerns of philosophy and theology in relation to difficult issues such as the teleology ascribable to the realm of life, the meaning and relevance of ontological emergence, the mechanist and reductionist view of living beings, the level of complexity peculiar to biological systems, the relationships between evolution and Creation, the presence of contingency in nature, the ontological discontinuity between animals and the human being, and so on. The Conference held at the Pontifical Gregorian University represented a multidisciplinary attempt at dealing with such a cluster of intellectual problems, and this volume of proceedings testifies not only the event in its uniqueness but also the efforts made in order to establish a true dialogue beyond any kind of cheap agreement or ideological closure. The volume gathers the contributions provided by 37 prominent scholars - scientists, philosophers and theologians - coming from major academic institutions like the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Stanford University, the College de France, the University of California, the University of Arizona, the Institute Catholique de Toulouse, the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, and the University of Notre Dame that also participated to the organization of the Conference. Even if a lot of work is still to be done, this volume shows that important steps have been made towards a critical view of biological evolution, in which an appropriate philosophical mediation allows scientific knowledge and theological reflection to profitably interact. This seems crucial for establishing a culture that is both updated and an appropriate context for the human development of future generations.

The work of Miquel Crusafont offers an example of the complex relationship between the theory of evolution and philosophical and theological thinking. Believers, also Catholics, were among the first supporters of Darwin’s theory, even though it spread in a cultural context that led to the confrontation between science and religion. This propitiated among the theologians a certain predominance of attitudes contrary to the evolution and to those who defended its compatibility with the catholic faith. The Vatican archives allow us to understand why, despite this, the authorities of the Holy See never issued an official condemnation of the evolution. Throughout the twentieth century the compatibilist attitude, or theistic evolution, became the common position of Catholic thought. Although it is sometimes accused of being an undue interference of religious concepts in science, current theology adopts a fully naturalistic perspective in the biological order, open to a fully transcendent perspective, seeking the ultimate meaning and value of reality.

In 1998 the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith were opened to the public, making available to the scholars the existing documentation about the reception of evolution in the Vatican. We are presenting here the research started by Mariano Artigas in 1999 in order to clarify the attitude of the Congregation of the Index in relation to some catholic authors that presented evolution as compatibility with catholic doctrine. Although most catholic theologians used to sharply criticize evolution, the Roman authorities maintained some prudential attitudes that permit to avoid a frontal conflict between evolution and catholic doctrine.

In this essay we use documents unpublished until now on a book that was condemned in 1878 by the Congregation of the Index because it supported the idea that evolution and Christianity were compatible. Since the last decades of the 19th century until 1950 and even later, these subjects have been treated in the text- books and in the writings on history in a very brief, partial, and often con- fused way. The opening of the Archives of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in 1998 makes possible for the first time to know in detail the work of the Congregation of the Index and this particular affair.

Un nuevo documento referente al caso Galileo fue descubierto por Mariano Artigas en diciembre de 1999 en los archivos del Santo Oficio. Artigas comunicó su descubrimiento a William R. Shea. Entonces acudieron a Rafael Martínez y le pidieron que se uniera al equipo. Martínez transcribió el documento y realizó una extensa investigación en archivos italianos, que ha permitido la identificación del autor. Esto ha permitido relacionar el documento con el trabajo de la Comisión especial designada por el Papa Urbano VIII en agosto de 1632 para decidir si Galileo debía ser llamado a comparecer ante el Santo Oficio en Roma. En este artículo se describe el nuevo documento (llamado por Artigas EE 291), se discute su autoría, y se examinan algunas consecuencias para nuestro conocimiento del caso Galileo.

The theory of evolution faced a critical attitude from the Catholic Church at the end of the 19th century. However, the authorities of the Holy See never issued an official condemnation. The documents from the Archives of the HolyThe theory of evolution faced a critical attitude from the Catholic Church at the end of the 19th century. However, the authorities of the Holy See never issued an official condemnation. The documents from the Archives of the Holy Office and the Index have recently made possible the reconstruction of the course of action of the Roman Congregations. In this study, the results of that investigation are analyzed along with its limits, bringing to light the perspectives on the understanding of the relationship between religion and science. Office and the Index have recently made possible the reconstruction of the course of action of the Roman Congregations. In this study, the results of that investigation are analyzed along with its limits, bringing to light the perspectives on the understanding of the relationship between religion and science.

In the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith a document has recently been found which seems to contain a doctrinal opinion concerning the anonymous accusation against Galileo’s atomism that Pietro Redondi discovered and published in 1983. The present paper is a transcription of the new document, together with explanatory notes. The introduction describes the manuscript and offers some hypotheses concerning the circumstances of its composition and its author, whom we believe to be Melchior Inchofer. The question of the origin and motivation of the original accusation against Galileo’s atomism is also addressed.