Interpreting Humani Generis: The Evolution Controversy in the Melbourne Catholic Press, 1960–61*

Abstract

From mid‐1960 to early 1961, the Melbourne Catholic weekly newspaper The Advocate carried an extended controversy on evolutionary science and its compatibility with the teachings of the Church. An intra‐denominational debate among Catholic scientists, clergy and laymen, the controversy was shaped by the theological framework of Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis (1950), which included the first ever papal statement on evolution. As a grassroots debate in which official Catholic policy as outlined in the encyclical was open to interpretation by competing interests, the controversy serves as an index of the ambiguities of Humani Generis, and of the uncertainties of wider Church policy at the time, regarding evolutionary science and human evolution in particular. The article considers the Advocate controversy and its immediate aftermath within the context of Humani Generis's strictures on human evolution, and within the longer history of Catholic responses to and engagement with evolutionary science.