SOURCE: Johnson, Phillip E. “Material Principle.” Commonweal 126, no. 8 (23 April 1999): 29-30.

In the following review, Johnson focuses on the papal statement that Gould uses in his analysis of religion and science in Rocks of Ages.

In October 1996 Pope John Paul II sent a statement on biological evolution to the Papal Academy of Sciences. After some general remarks, John Paul observed that Pius XII's encyclical Humani generis in 1950 had described the theory of evolution as “a serious hypothesis,” worthy of in-depth study and not contrary to the Catholic faith—provided that it was not presented as certain, proven doctrine, and that it did not purport to displace entirely the role of revelation in questions of origins. John Paul updated that judgment, saying that since 1950 discoveries have been made in a variety of fields which support the theory, so that now evolution should be regarded as more than merely a hypothesis...