Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has an op-ed piece in the New York Times today explaining the Catholic Church's view of Darwinian evolution.

Not to put too fine a point on it, he essentially says in so many words that neo-Darwinism is wrong and ID is right. He writes that the conclusion that life is designed is not a matter of faith, but a matter of physical evidence. He says the denial of that evidence is itself ideology; in other words, the denial of the evidence is the faith, the affirmation of the evidence is rational.

I think this is enormously important. (Me Catholic.) I strongly suspect that this op-ed was instigated by Pope Benedict himself. It seems very unlikely that Austrian Cardinal Schönborn would publish an op-ed in the New York Times expounding Catholic understanding of evolution, taking on the Darwinists, and quoting Benedict himself without at least the Pope's tacit approval, and more likely his active encouragement. I take this to mean that Benedict thinks this issue is very important, and is very interested in setting matters straight.

Having the weight of the Catholic Church publicly behind ID and against Darwinism will make it much harder for the Scopes Trial caricature to stick to ID. Now it isn't just the proverbial band of yahoos from Tennessee (and a tiny number of confused academics) who don't get it. Now it's the largest Christian denomination in the world, one that makes distinctions between the entirely separate issues of the age of the earth, common descent, and Darwinian randomness.