Text by Tricia Aquino | Lifestyle Section, InterAksyon.com Sunday, November 30, 2014 9:11 am

Knowing that God had been preparing the universe for millions of years so that humans could set foot on Earth should be cause for celebration. In photo, Pulilan Church in Bulacan. InterAksyon Lifestyle file photo by Bernard Testa.

Pope Francis may have caused a stir when his recent statement on the Big Bang Theory and evolution were not in conflict with Gods role in creation, but Church experts believe the controversy could have been prevented if Catholic leaders simply explained the faith better.

I think the problem is the Catholic Church has accepted evolution but it has not done the work in explaining how the faith would be contained in such a container, said Malate Church parish priest Fr. John Leydon, MSC in a press conference organized by the Ecology Ministry of the Archdiocese of Manila and the Congregation of the Missionary of St. Columban on November 19 at the Arzobispado de Manila.

Involved in environmental spirituality for the past 20 years, Leydon said that the facts were clear: in 1950, Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Humanae Generis that evolution was an acceptable hypothesis. St. John Paul II expounded this to a theory in 1996 before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Leydon recalled being taught by priests in high school that evolution was not a problem in light of Catholic teaching. The only time this became an issue was when he would talk to other Catholics in evolutionary terms and they would think that this was a rejection of their faith.

That is not the Catholic position, he stressed.

On October 28, Pope Francis said (http://www.interaksyon.com/article/98137/pope-francis-says-big-bang-theory-does-not-contradict-role-of-god), The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to something else, but it derives directly from a supreme principle that creates out of love.

The Big Bang, that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God, on the contrary it requires it, he added.

Pope Francis also said that evolution is not in contrast with the notion of (divine) creation because evolution requires the creation of the beings that evolve.

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Looking at creation through science should increase faith in God, says priest