Pope Benedict XVI will this week host a private seminar to firm-up the Catholic Churchâs stance on Darwinian evolution.
One of the key guests, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn from Vienna, Austria, is known to sympathise with Intelligent Design (ID), the idea that the development of life is masterminded by an unidentified designer, usually assumed to be God.
In August, at a Catholic rally held in Rimini, Italy, Schönborn announced that the summit would take place from 1 September to 3 September at Castel Gandalfo, the Popeâs summer palace.
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It is rumoured that the seminar will be aimed at finding a way to stop the church giving out mixed messages, with some senior figures supporting Darwinism and others denouncing it.
âObviously trueâ
Dominique Tassot, a Roman Catholic scientist and anti-evolutionist, told the US National Catholic Reporter that the aim of the meeting was to âgive a broader extension to the debateâ.
Tassot said that âmost catholic intellectuals today are convinced that evolution is obviously true because most scientists say soâ.
The previous pope, John Paul II, appeared to back Darwinian evolution when in 1996 he described evolution as âmore than a hypothesisâ.
Likewise, Father George Coyne, until recently director of the Vatican Observatory, mocked the idea of Intelligent Design, accusing its backers of underestimating Godâs willingness to give âfreedomâ to nature.
Coyne is also on record as having described creationism as âa religious movement devoid of all scientific basisâ.
In the science monthly periodical Newton, Coyne said: âGod isnât a designer and life is the fruit of billions of attempts.â
Not an accident
This thinking puts Coyne at odds with other church academics such as Schönborn, who repeated in Rimini his belief that the universe cannot have formed in a random way, as proposed by Darwinian evolution.
It is not known what stance the Pope himself will take, although in his inaugural sermon on becoming Pope, he said: âWe are not the accidental product, without meaning, of evolutionâ.
On 19 August, 73-year-old Coyne was replaced as director of the Vatican Observatory. Rumours abound he was removed because of his vocal views on evolution. Coyne himself is reported as saying that he wished to be replaced because he is being treated for cancer.
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