Documents for the 2009 Anniversary:
International Year of Astronomy and II Centenary of Darwin’s birth

2. Selected readings on the Galileo Affair

3. Humanistic reflections on astronomy and the observation of the starred sky

1. Charles R. Darwin on God and Religion: a Selection of Texts

Charles R. Darwin, My Religious Belief, from The Autobiography of C.R. Darwin edited by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow, with the original omissions restored.

A Selection of Darwin’s Letters concerning God’s Existence and the Theory of Evolution (from the texts published on the Darwin Correspondence Project)

The Role of a Creator according to the 1842 Sketch and to the conclusions of The Origin of Species (1859 and 1860)

C.H. Hunter, “Evolution and Theodicy”, a reading from Darwin’s God. Evolution and the Problem of Evil

2. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church and the Origin of Man

Pius XII, On Evolution and Monogenism, from Humani generis, 1950

John Paul II, Address to the Participants to an International Conference on “Christian Faith and Theory of Evolution”, April 26, 1985

John Paul II, Humans are Spiritual and Corporal Beings, from the General Audience Aprile 16, 1986

John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: “Magisterium Is Concerned with Question of Evolution for It Involves Conception of Man, October 22, 1996

Creation and the Quest on the Origins according to the Cathechism of the Catholic Church (1997)

International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship. Human Persons Created in the Image of God (2004), excerpts from nn. 1-5; 62-70