"Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans."
(from yesterday's Telegraph)

I was attending a catholic school nearly sixty years ago, and we were taught then that evolution was the only sensible explanation of life on Earth. We were also taught that God created the universe, so I suppose the deity just sort of let things develop independently after opening the proceedings.

Another thing we were taught was that blaming the Jews for the death of Christ was a load of cobblers. The Messiah died for the sins of all mankind, so wherever he was born he was going to be topped. He chose to be born among Jews because, I suppose, he was a traditionalist, chosen people and all that.
Anyway, imagine my surprise when a Pope pops up sometime in the 1970s and declares that the Catholic Church no longer blamed the Jews for killing Jerusalem Slim. What could it mean? Had my teachers been filling our heads with heretical thoughts? Should I have been shouting "Deicide!" at Joe Hyam the barber?
I wonder if the Vatican has trouble keeping up with the rest of the Church Militant.

Over time I've developed my own ideas about where we come from and where we're going, and what we should be doing in the meantime. They don't involve much of that stuff we got at school, but you have to start somewhere.