Is the Catholic Church rethinking its view of evolution?

An influential cardinal recently suggested that the contemporary understanding of evolution conflicts with Catholic beliefs, sparking fears that new tensions may develop between science and the Catholic Church at a time when the President and other Christians are also challenging the scientific establishment.

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, archbishop of Vienna, wrote an opinion piece published last month in The New York Times, arguing that evolution's haphazardness is incompatible with the Catholic vision of God, and that ''human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world."

''Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense -- an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection -- is not," he wrote.

The cardinal's commentary comes as the teaching of evolution, a central tenet of modern biology, has been assailed in many states, most prominently in Kansas, where the Board of Education is considering a plan that would introduce criticisms of Darwinism into state curriculum standards.

The debate made it all the way to the White House last week, when President Bush told reporters that he believes the theory of intelligent design should be taught along with evolution. Intelligent design argues that life is too complex to have evolved without some involvement from an intelligent force.

''Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," Bush said. ''I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."

But Schonborn and Bush were both mixing up scientific theories and religious beliefs, said Georgetown University theologian John F. Haught, who has written extensively on evolution and God, and believes the two are compatible. ''When Bush says 'let's give equal treatment to both sides of an issue,' it doesn't make any sense, because you can't compare meaningfully a scientific statement with a belief statement, they belong to different layers of understanding," he said.

Half a century ago, Pope Pius XII said that evolution, if true, wouldn't conflict with Catholic teachings. And in 1996, Pope John Paul II called the theory of evolution ''more than a hypothesis," while declaring that science and Catholicism couldn't clash because ''truth cannot contradict truth."

Perhaps because of the Vatican's apparent comfort with modern science, Catholics have not been a major part of the religious movement against Darwinism.

Schonborn's essay is ''a real setback to the dialogue between science and religion, which has been flourishing quite well of late," Haught said. ''It's not the business of religion ever to state whether a scientific idea is true or false. We should have learned that with the Galileo case."

In general, evolution is taught without controversy in Catholic high schools, and if God's role comes up in science or religion class, teachers will usually say that God creates through the process of evolution, according to Haught. In Catholic universities, religion is generally not a part of science curriculum at all.

Scientists and theologians who took issue with Schonborn's essay said they did not think it would lead Catholic high schools and universities to change their teaching of evolution because it was not an official statement from the Vatican and also because Catholic universities operate with academic freedom.

Still, ''I found it wasn't helpful in the sense that it muddied the waters," said the Rev. Donald Plocke, a Jesuit priest and biology professor at Boston College. ''In my estimation there is no reason to think there is a conflict between Catholic philosophy and the theory of evolution."

Schonborn's essay prompted three scientists to write to Pope Benedict XVI last month, expressing alarm that the cardinal ''appeared to dangerously redefine the Church's view on evolution," and asking the pope to reaffirm past statements by the church ''so it will be clear that Cardinal Schonborn's remarks do not reflect the views of the Holy See."

''It is vitally important . . . that in these difficult and contentious times the Catholic Church not build a new divide, long ago eradicated, between the scientific method and religious belief," wrote the scientists. The signatories were Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, a Catholic and author of ''Finding Darwin's God: A scientist's search for common ground between God and evolution"; University of California, Irvine biologist Francisco J. Ayala, a former Dominican priest; and Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University.

Father Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman, said the pope has not made any new statements on evolution, or on Schonborn's ideas.

''The church doesn't move in a journalistic manner," he said last week. ''Answers are not made so quickly. Instead it moves slowly and with time for reflection. I think it is an important matter, but I don't know at this time what the pope will do in the future."

In his essay, Schonborn wrote that Catholic teachings on evolution have been misinterpreted. He deemed ''vague and unimportant" John Paul's letter calling evolution ''more than a hypothesis" and instead referred to an earlier address in which John Paul said, ''To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. . . . It would be to abdicate human intelligence."

Schonborn, who is close to Benedict and serves on the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, concluded that ''scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity' are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence."

The New York Times reported that an official from the Discovery Institute in Seattle, which advocates teaching alternative theories to evolution, urged Schonborn to write the op-ed, and that it was submitted to the newspaper by a public relations firm that also represents the Discovery Institute.

''Here we see the involvement of an anti-evolution think-tank getting the cardinal to write an op-ed piece attacking evolution and then using a public relations firm to place that op-ed in The New York Times," Miller said.

Miller takes no issue with Schonborn's theology, but said the cardinal displayed a misunderstanding of science when he suggested that neo-Darwinian thought rules out a role for a creator.

Miller described neo-Darwinian theory as an amalgam of genetics, population biology, molecular biology, and evolutionary theory that explains the mechanism of evolution, including natural selection and random chance -- but has nothing to say about whether a divine being may be responsible for the whole thing.

There are prominent scientists, most notably Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins, who do suggest essentially that evolution rules out a divine creator, but others critique that view as straying beyond the bounds of true science.

Of course, what was alarming to some was heartening or exciting to others. ''I thought it was great, a nice clarification," said Michael Behe, a Catholic scientist at Lehigh University who is a proponent of intelligent design. His book ''Darwin's Black Box" argued that there are highly complex structures in cells that are best explained as the product of guidance from some intelligent force. Behe, who is affiliated with the Discovery Institute, says he came to his view not out of religious belief but scientific inquiry.

Behe said Schonborn's essay might give pause to scientists who are also Christians. ''Perhaps they will look a bit harder at the scientific evidence that is cited in support of Darwinist claims and see whether that's really adequate."

Globe correspondent Sofia Celeste contributed to this report.Marcella Bombardieri can be reached atbombardieri@globe.com.