From Pat Dacey, Johannesburg
It is both interesting and welcoming to see our priests having open minds regarding evolution.
In in the early 1900s, after Darwin had put the cat amongst the pigeons in the mid-1800s with his theory on evolution, a Catholic priest formulated an idea that 20 odd years later became known as the “Big Bang” theory. His name was Mgr Georges Lemaître.
In the 1930s Fr Lemaître, a Belgian, flew from France to America and presented this idea to an eminent group of scientists, Einstein being one of them, that gave credence to the problematic subject of creation. Fr Lemaître was himself a scientist.
The birth of Christianity is based on an evolutionary process. The death of Jesus on the cross “for us” has become a symbolic replay of the origins of life-giving matter which were formed in exploding stars entering their final moments of existence (supernova). This matter led to the birth of our solar system, the flowers and plants, reptiles, mammals and you and me.
The underlying blueprint of the universe is that, in death, the seeds of new life are born. Christianity is one of many ways depicting this blueprint.
Pat Dacey, Johannesburg
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