Dear Jason:

In actuality evolution has never been a threat to the Christian faith. It is not so much the theories, as it is the unscientific application of the theories by some scientists and others. 

While the theories do present some scientific questions that have not been resolved, the theories are reasonable. Some scientists, however, act as if the theories of evolution are an absolute settled fact that is beyond any question or discussion. That, in itself, is non-scientific thinking. Science is based upon probabilities not certainties.

In relation to the Christian religion, the primary problem is that non-scientific thinking scientists, and others, have tried to assert that the theories of evolution proves that God does not exist. This is utter nonsense and irrational thinking on a number of levels. For the scientist, however, the primary level of nonsense is that such assertions about God is not a matter for science. Science cannot investigate God. Science has not the competence to discuss God. God is beyond the realm of science to even discuss. Science has no business trying to prove or disprove the existence of God or to assert that God does not exist because of this or that theory. By definition, the issue of God is beyond the realm of science to investigate.

What science is suppose to be is summarized by these statements: "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning" (Rules for the study of natural philosophy", Newton 1999, pp. 794–6, from Book 3,The System of the World). 

From the Oxford English Dictionary entry for scientific, the scientific method is defined as: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."

By the way, the Catholic Church invented the scientific method as we know it today. See the article, No Church, No Scientific Method by Scott Locklin, a former physicist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Also see the book, How the Western World was built by the Catholic Church by Thomas E. Woods, Ph.D. from Columbia, and Professor and Senior Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

As a more specific description of  the relationship of the Catholic Church and evolution, Blessed Pope John Paul II spoke to this issue before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 22 October 1996, Magisterium Is Concerned with Question of Evolution. Here are some excerpts:

3. ...In his Encyclical Humani generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points  (cf. AAS 42 [1950], pp. 575-576).

5. The Church's Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1:27-29). The conciliar Constitution Gaudium et spes has magnificently explained this doctrine, which is pivotal to Christian thought. It recalled that man is :the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake" (n. 24). In other terms, the human individual cannot be subordinated as a pure means or a pure instrument, either to the species or to society, he has value per se. He is a person. With his intellect and his will, he is capable of forming a relationship of communion, solidarity and self-giving with his peers. St Thomas observes that man's likeness to God resides especially in his speculative intellect for his relationship with the object of his knowledge resembles God's relationship with what he has created (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 3, a. 5, ad 1). But even more, man is called to enter into a relationship of knowledge and love with God himself, a relationship which will find its complete fulfilment beyond time, in eternity. All the depth and grandeur of this vocation are revealed to us in the mystery of the risen Christ (cf. Gaudium et spes, n. 22). It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such a dignity even in his body. Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter the spiritual soul is immediately created by God ("animal enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere inhet"; Encyclical Humani generis, AAS 42 [1950], p. 575).

Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person.

6. With man, then, we find ourselves in the presence of an ontological difference, an ontological leap, one could say. However, does not the posing of such ontological discontinuity run counter to that physical continuity which seems to be the main thread of research into evolution in the field of physics and chemistry? Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition into the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again, of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator's plans.

The simple summary of the points made by the Church in various documents are these:

1. The mechanism of creation is for the realm of science to investigate.

2. Science cannot assert, however, the non-existence of God as it has no competence to make such judgment. Therefore, that God is the creator is an absolute that must be maintained when considering theories of evolution.

3. It is also an absolute that the human race had an original pair of parents. Actually. science agrees with this. I have no idea where you get the idea that an "Adam and Eve" did not exist. Science says otherwise. For example, in 1987 a group of geneticists published a study in the journal Nature that concluded that "...every person on Earth right now can trace his or her lineage back to a single common female ancestor who lived around 200,000 years ago" (Are we all descended from a common female ancestor?)

4. While the biology, the creature of man, may have evolved, the soul of man has not. This, too, is an absolute. The rational soul is individually and uniquely created and ensouled in the human person at the very moment of conception.

As long as a person acknowledged these points, especially 2-4, then we can allow science to investigate theories of the mechanisms of God's creation without threat to the Faith.

I challenge you to read these three documents: Magisterium Is Concerned with Question of Evolution, Humani generis, and Gaudium et spes. I also challenge you to read the article, No Church, No Scientific Method, and the book, How the Western World was built by the Catholic Church. Intellectual honesty demands that you read this material if you have even the slightest interest in really knowing the answers to your questions.

As to the doctrine of original sin, evolution does not challenge that doctrine even in the slightest.

Evolution presents no contradiction or problem of any sort to the doctrine of original sin. Original Sin was a result of a personal choice that was made possible by the Free Will decision of a rational soul. Animals do not have a rational soul and thus cannot have genuine Free Will. They live according to instinct, natural responses to physical stimuli, and in some cases a limited ability to think and problem-solve. Even the higher primates are no more than this even though they have a capacity to higher thinking and problem solving than most. The crow, however, rivals the problem-solving of even the most intelligent higher primates.

Man, with a rational soul, is said to be made in the image of God. The "image of God" is not in biology as God is pure spirit and has no biology. The "image of God" is the gift of a rational soul. The rational soul allows the creature so ensouled to have some attributes of God. These include a self-awareness of one's being and one's mortality to a degree that that no animal possesses. It includes a creative intelligence and problem-solving at a level that no animal possesses. Most of all the rational soul has the capacity to freely choose and to love. This Free Will allows the human person to make decisions that transcend biological imperatives, instinct, and mere reactions to stimuli.

It is only when the creature of man was ensouled by God that he had the capacity to choose to sin or not and be aware and culpable for that sin. Animals, even the smartest higher primates, do not have this capacity and thus cannot sin and are not morally culpable for their actions.

Thus, assuming evolution is correct, God waited until a creature evolved with the brain structure and capacity, and the physical structures in the brain and in the body to allow high language, and other such evolutionary conditions, that would allow this creature to be more than a mere creature, but to be a thinking, rational person. Thus, God waited until such a creature evolved and was capable and ready to receive the gift of a rational soul.

At whatever point in the man's evolutionary history that he became developed enough to qualify and to receive a rational soul, it is at that point only that the human creature became a human being with the ability to choose right from wrong and to be morally cupable.

Original Sin was born at that point. As He did with the angels, once the human person had the capacity to choose, God tested man's use of that capacity. Man, our Adam and Eve, failed that test and rebelled against God. That free will decision made by our first ensouled parents is called Original Sin.

The fact that our first parents committed the radical act of sin that killed the soul by virtue of their rebellion, and which gave a hereditary stain on the souls of all men subsequently, requires the radical act of God to redeem that fallen soul of men. This is why Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, had to come to earth as both man and God, and sacrifice Himself as payment of the sin of men in order to redeem mankind to allow them the radical possibility of eternal life in friendship with God.

What I have outlined here is Church teaching, in brief. All, except the existence of man's first parents which science also agrees and asserts, is a matter of faith, not science, as science has no competence to investigate these matters.

It is important to realize, especially for a self-avowed atheist like yourself, that the Catholic Church is a reasoned Faith 2000 years old, and, with its historical and theological connection with Jewish Faith, is a tradition that is 4000 years old. As such, the Church does not have to prove anything to anyone. It is what it is. Anyone who wishes to refute Catholic teaching has the burden of proof, based upon reasoned argument backed by evidence, not opinion, that the Church is wrong. As it is with other matters, such as a court of law, the challenger has the burden of proof. One is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You are the challenger in your thoughts about the Catholic Church. The burden is upon you, not the Church, nor me.

You asked for the Church's teaching on these matters. Now you have it. I hope you have the intellectual integrity and honestly to accept that this is what the Church believes, and that the Church's teaching is based upon reason, regardless of whether or not you agree with that teaching.  One can accept that a reasoned argument has been made and yet still disagree.

I especially hope that if you disagree you will disagree with intelligence, integrity, and honesty, and not prejudice and intellectual cowardliness. I hope that if you disagree, your disagreement will be based not upon what you think the Church teaches, but upon an accurate knowledge of what the Church actually teaches. This requires honest study of Church documents. Approaching disagreement in this way is called intellectual courage, which, unfortunately, few people have these days. If this is something you are not willing to seriously and honestly do, then integrity and intellectual honesty demands your silence.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary