In case some weren’t aware, the Catholic Church convened a commission in 1996, headed by then Cardinal Ratzinger, trying to answer the question as how to reconcile the creation story with the growing evidence for evolution.
This was in the backdrop of the 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, which granted it was possible that human bodies developed from “pre-existing matter” but maintained Adam & Eve must have existed.
In 1996, John Paul II reaffirmed this, stating that evidence had made Evolution more than a hypothesis, but reiterated the “soul” did not evolve, and must have come into existence by the intercession of God.
So in 2004, when the ITC released its final report “Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God.” what changed? Nothing the rules laid out per se, just that the Church was more willing to concede that a 1st organism likely existed, and was the preogenitor of all current life. And that Adam & Eve’s children likely interbred with non-soul hominids. They admitted this was possible (not doctrine), and had no conflict with the faith.
They simply reiterate that the soul could not have evolved, and that pure material causes could not explain humans becoming “rational”. God must have been involved then.
”While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5-4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.”
”“The Church’s teaching on creation leaves room for the legitimate autonomy of the natural sciences… The doctrine of creation does not in itself prescribe how God’s creative process reached its eventual completion.”