Albert Einstein once said that Science and Religion are not at ends, and Pope Francis understood what the scientist meant.
In his address for the Pontificial Academy of Sciences, during a discussion called "Evolving Concepts of Nature," the Pope says that the Big Bang and the theory of evolution "do not contradict" creationism, because God was not "a magician with a magic wand." The Big Bang is a theory stating that the universe was born from an explosion about 13.7 billion years ago. He said that the explanations of the world did not exclude God's role in creation.
NBC News reported that the Pope's remark is vastly different from his predecessor: Pope Benedict XVI was a strong advocate of creationism. In 2011, the former Pope indicated that scientific theories, while not in conflict with faith, still left questions unanswered.
The Pope addressed, "The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to something else, but it derives directly from a supreme principle that creates out of love. The Big Bang, that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God; on the contrary, it requires it. Evolution in nature is not in contrast with the notion of [divine] creation because evolution requires the creation of the beings that evolve."
In the early days, the Church has rejected scientific explanations which led to the condemnation of 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei for showing that the earth revolved around the sun, says Reuters.
However, the more recent pontiffs have shed that image when some of the Pope's predecessors have supported the theory of evolution. Pope Pius XII, in 1950 has said that evolution is a valid approach to development, to which Pope John Paul reiterated again in 1996.
Pope Francis perhaps wrapped up his statement simply, "When we read in Genesis the account of creation [we are] in danger of imagining that God was a magician, complete with a magic wand that can do all things. But he is not."
The Telegraph UK reported that the president of Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics, Giovanni Bignami said, "The Pope's declaration is significant. We are the descendants of the Big Bang, which created the universe. You just have to think that in our blood we have a few litres of hydrogen, which was created by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Our blood is red because it contains iron, which was created by the explosion of a star millions and millions of years ago. Out of creation came evolution."