Catholic Church no longer accepts the existence of God, Jesus not His Son
Pope abandons ideas central to Catholic doctrine for years
Friday, January 20, 2006; Posted: 2:15 p.m. EST (19:15 GMT)
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Pope Benedict XVI announces to a crowd of Catholic parishioners that worshipping Jesus is misguided
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ROME, Italy (CNN) -- In a landmark reversal of nearly 2000 years of Catholic doctrine, less than two hours ago Pope Benedict XVI signed a papal bull, the incipit of which denies the existence of God.
For several decades, the Catholic church has arguably been the most progressive of the major Christian elements. In 1951, Pope Pius XII announced to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that he accepted the Big Bang Theory. In April 1993 Pope John Paul II formally acquitted Galileo, 360 years after his indictment, of heretical support for Copernicuss heliocentrism. Three years later, he publically accepted the controversial Theory of Evolution "as an effectively proven fact."
Now Pope Benedict has pronounced that there is no "logical defense" of the supposed existence of God, just as there was "no logical offense toward the common ancestry of all of Earth's species." He went further to say the church "has always valued reason, since the days of the Scholastics," and that this is "merely a reasonable extension of that core value."
"This," said Reverend Charles J. Chaput, Archishop of Denver, Colorado, "I must admit I never would have expected."
Chaput was one of the Americans in attendence of Benedict's pronouncement. "It was a stunning event."
Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, Archbishop of Genoa, Italy, explains the huge predicimant Catholics now find themselves in. "Central to the Catholic faith is that the Pope is the voice of God. Also central is that there is a God."
"And when the voice of God says there is no God, I really don't know what to believe," he confesses.
"Science, reason, logic, and progress are all great things that are rightfully valued by our Catholic church," said Edward Michael Cardinal Egan, archbishop of New York. "I accept my church's relatively recent applause of the idea that the universe arose from a 'Big Bang.' I applaud my church's even more recent acceptance of our common ancestry with apes. But saying that there's no God ... That's just going too far."
(Watch a recording of the Pope's speech released by the Vatican -- 17:35)
But others are embracing the Pope's change of heart. "There is no man more deserving [sic] of my respect," says Lucile Bubbard, a mother of three in New York City, speaking of Pope Benedict. "And when he say's there's no reason to believe in God, [my family and I] will be behind his decision 100%."
Commentators have yet to fully project the long-term effects of this landmark papal decree.
