The directors of the Smithsonian, con-
cerned that the Human Origins exhibit
would offend religious people, created a
committee to guide the museum in pre-
senting the material.
“I’ve been on the committee for about
five years,” said Fr. Ryan. “It’s quite a di-
verse group. The Smithsonian is interest-
ed in promoting the science of evolution,
but I see it more as an opportunity to say
important things about faith and help
people see that it is in no way opposed
to science and to evolution properly un-
derstood.”
From Buddhism to African Methodist
Episcopal and Judaism to Humanism,
thus to ask questions about God.”
Not surprisingly, with so many differ-
ent faith traditions, full agreement on
every topic doesn’t happen all the time.
“There’s a lot of commonality. These
are very interesting people who are bright
and good-willed,” said Fr. Ryan. “Still,
some of the other members go beyond
what I think is proper. I don’t think you
can account for the human person solely
on the basis of evolution.”
Fr. Ryan pointed out that to hold that
the human body evolved does not imply
that sub-personal creation alone can bring
human persons, who are body and soul,
into existence. “The Catholic Church has
“The Catholic Church has never shied away from that
truth. The same God who created us with our ability to
reason also reveals himself to us, and it is impossible
for faith and reason to contradict each other.”
twelve faith traditions are represented, in-
cluding Catholicism. The members meet
once a year for just over a day in their
advisory capacity.
Part of the yearly gathering involves
a public event with a featured speaker.
Members of the committee have the op-
portunity to respond to the speaker’s
topic and answer questions from the au-
dience. This year’s speaker was Barbara
King, who discussed antecedents of reli-
gion in our non-human ancestors.
“She struck me as a sincere person, and
she had some interesting ideas,” Fr. Ryan
said. “But I took issue with some of them.
I emphasized that there is a radical dif-
ference between human beings and other
animals. One difference is that we are
self-aware – we can reflect on ourselves
reflecting. Another is that human beings
consciously strive to find meaning in
life. We naturally seek to understand our
place in the broader sweep of reality, and
8
good reasons for teaching that a special
creative act of God is required,” he said.
He believes that all too often, secular
society pulls younger Catholics away from
their faith by intimating that religious
people are superstitious and reject the
discoveries of science. He argues that if
the Church is to attract and retain young
people, she will need to help them see the
compatibility between faith and science.
Far from rejecting science, Fr. Ryan ex-
plained, the Church has supported the
scientific community over the centuries
by starting the first universities and pro-
viding academic environments for study
and research.
“We are called to increase our un-
derstanding of God’s wonderful gift of
creation,” Fr. Ryan said. “The Catholic
Church has never shied away from that
truth. The same God who created us with
our ability to reason also reveals himself
to us, and it is impossible for faith and
reason to contradict each other.”
“In fact,” he said “as St. John Paul II
puts it, ‘Faith and reason are like two
wings on which the human spirit rises to
the contemplation of truth.’”
Attributing the fraying connection
of faith and science in young Catholics
partly to the secularization of Catholic
universities, Fr. Ryan said, “There is a
great need for our universities to hire
faithful and intelligent professors willing
to teach their disciplines in ways students
can recognize as compatible with faith,
and to articulate their faith in ways stu-
dents can recognize as reasonable.”
Some students reject the faith because
they assume that Catholicism holds that
every passage of Scripture must be taken
literally. According to Fr. Ryan, it is vital
to emphasize two truths that the Catho-
lic Church teaches about Scripture. “The
first is that every proposition asserted by
the human authors of Scripture is true
because it is also asserted by the Holy
Spirit who does not lie. The second is
that not every proposition is ‘asserted’ –
that is, not every statement is intended
by the author to be taken literally.”
“While the miracles of the New Testa-
ment are certainly intended to be taken as
literally true,” Fr. Ryan explained, “some
of the statements of the creation accounts
of the Book of Genesis use the language of
myth to communicate important truths.”
“We need not believe that creation was
completed in six literal 24-hour days or
that a talking snake tempted Eve,” said
Fr. Ryan. “But we do need to believe the
truths communicated through the story:
That creation had a beginning. That
God brought everything into existence
in an ordered way. That God created hu-
man beings good and in harmony with
For some of Fr. Ryan’s contributions to the committee, see http://humanorigins.si.edu/about/
broader-social-impacts-committee/members-member-resources/peter-f-ryan and (for a video)
http://humanorigins.si.edu/multimedia/videos/fr-peter-ryan-sj-us-conference-catholic-bishops.
Sacred Heart Major Seminary | Mosaic | Summer 2019