McFadden, T: Catholicism, Evolution, and Secular Theology. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.McFadden, T: Catholicism, Evolution, and Secular Theology

This book was updated in 2024 to include the findings of the James Webb Space Telescope related to cosmology models.
Catholicism's hierarchy has watched helplessly as its youthful members have been walking away in droves. According to their own spokesman, Bishop Robert Barron speaking in 2019 to the Bishops' Conference, “half the kids we baptized and confirmed in the last 30 years are now ex-Catholics or unaffiliated.” To put that into perspective, he said that “one out of six millennials in the U.S. is now a former Catholic.” He claimed that they simply no longer believe the Church’s teachings and called that “the bitter fruit of the dumbing down of our faith” as it has been presented in catechesis and apologetics.

Paragraph 282 of the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies "the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves: “Where do we come from?” “Where are we going?” “What are our origins?” “What is our end?” “Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?” The Catechism asserts that “the first two questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end are inseparable.” They “are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and actions.”

For centuries Christians found the answers to those questions about their supernatural origins, their purpose, and their destiny in the Bible, especially in the earliest chapters of Genesis. But the very next paragraph of the Catechism refers Catholics to "science" and to "the understanding and wisdom" that God "gives to scholars and researchers." In the quotation from the Catechism below, the names of the theories applicable to what the Catechism calls "scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge" are shown between [ ]:
283 The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos [the big bang theory], the development of life forms [abiogenesis theory] and the appearance of man [biological evolution from a common ancestor, i.e., Darwinism]. These discoveries invite us to greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers.

The author quotes the late Benedict XVI's explanation about what happened to our faith in the Bible because of the new model for reading it through the lens of “science":
… in the history-of-religions school, the model of evolution was applied to the analysis of biblical texts. … To that extent there lies in modern exegesis a reduction of history into philosophy, a revision of history by means of philosophy.

The author shows that the new paradigm for interpreting the Bible according to the model of evolution has created cognitive dissonance in the young. Social research demonstrates that many lose faith at an early age because of what they are taught in school about "scientific" evolutionary origins. They perceive a "disconnect" between religion and science and attribute the greater authority to science.

Based on that hypothesis the author explains in detail the current state of evolutionary cosmology, evolutionary biology, and evolutionary geology to show that they are not the "settled science" as taught by the education system. Neither evolutionary origins nor revealed supernatural origins can be proved. The author's intent is to give readers facts to judge for themselves which unprovable is more plausible. He makes the case that the creation vs. evolution controversy is not about science at all. It is about philosophy.