Intelligent Design in the United States; Pope says Science is challenge, but no threat

The Pope made his comments at a time of heated debate, mostly in the United States, about intelligent design arguments challenging evolution.

The dialogue between religion and science would actually help the faithful see "the logic of faith in God," said the Pope.

The Church, however, should not fear the challenge of reconciling faith and reason because God was "in fact, the Lord of all creation and all history."

"The Church joyfully accepts the real conquests of human knowledge and recognizes that spreading the Gospel also means really taking charge of the prospects and the challenges that modern knowledge unlocks," he said.

But science and religion are not opposed to each other and Christians should not be afraid to try to understand how they compliment each other in explaining the mystery of life on Earth, he told the Vatican's doctrinal department.

As John Paul II said in Faith & Reason...

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.

It is OK to leave science as science, taught without reference to God.

Those with Faith will understand what they hear quite differently than
those without. That is the Gift of Faith to those whom the Father calls.

Faith can not be shouted with demonstrations nor taught with the force
of civil law like with the Muslims. The last thing we need is to become
them.

Faith is more precious than that. It is a pure gift.