My only question is: who the hell suggested we needed to apologize to Darwin in the first place?

The Vatican said on Tuesday the theory of evolution was compatible with the Bible but planned no posthumous apology to Charles Darwin for the cold reception it gave him 150 years ago.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, was speaking at the announcement of a Rome conference of scientists, theologians and philosophers to be held next March marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's "The Origin of Species".

Christian churches were long hostile to Darwin because his theory conflicted with the literal biblical account of creation.

Earlier this week a leading Anglican churchman, Rev. Malcolm Brown, said the Church of England owed Darwin an apology for the way his ideas were received by Anglicans in Britain.

Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans in 1950 and [Pope John Paul II] reiterated that in 1996. But Ravasi said the Vatican had no intention of apologizing for earlier negative views.

The apology to Galileo, I can see some justification for. I'm becoming less convinced, as time rolls on, that it was really necessary — a simple admission that "those who came before us were in error" would have sufficed, I think — but I can understand the intent behind it. The reaction of the Church to Galileo was not just cold, but actively hostile.

Darwin's theories did receive a colder reception…but I suspect that was as much because the Church wanted time to evaluate his theories in order to see if there was anything in them which was not compatible with the extant theology concerning creation as it was because the theories themselves were new and somewhat controversial. Never in my experience of Catholicism have I discerned anything other than general acceptance of the theory of evolution — most Catholics that I have known have no problem reconciling their faith with the discoveries of the scientific community.

The Church herself has no fixed opinion or doctrines concerning evolutionary theory, however. It is left to each Catholic to decide, for him/herself, what to believe and accept about human origins.

Also, and on another topic, I like how Archbishop Ravasi thinks. More like him, please:

"Maybe we should abandon the idea of issuing apologies as if history was a court eternally in session," he said, adding that Darwin's theories were "never condemned by the Catholic Church nor was his book ever banned".

Amen!