Q: What's the Vatican's position on the role of science in religion and faith?

A: The essential thing is that they're two independent human experiences of knowing. Science has its methodology. Theology and philosophy, supporting religious faith, have theirs. But they have to dialogue, since the truth is one. Pope John Paul II says beautifully that science can teach religion to avoid becoming a mythology without its roots in a rationalistic foundation, and religion can teach science not to be idolatrous, to think science is everything.

Q: The stance on evolution?

A: John Paul II said evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis but all of the sciences converge upon the fact that scientific evolution is the best explanation we have for all the scientific facts.

Q: How does the Catholic Church square that with biblical creation accounts?

A: It says Genesis is not teaching science. There is no science in the Bible. Did Alice go through the looking glass? I don't care. It's a beautiful story that teaches a lot of truth.

Q: Do you find evidence for God's existence in science?

A: No. I don't see evidence against the existence of God, either. Science is absolutely neutral with respect to anything that is beyond matter. If I believe in God, then my science to me personally, and I think to many, says a great deal about my faith and about God. My sense of the evolutionary universe very much colors the God in whom I believe. Absolutely. Why shouldn't it?

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