I saw a news report today on the Catholic Church finally admiting that certain part of the bible (notably Genesis) should not be taken litrally, after years of saying it should. It said they are doing this because no one really believes in it today and they want to be more appealing to the youth of today.
Funny, I had been told years ago by a priest that no one takes Genesis literally within the Catholic Church. Maybe its just an official statement of an unofficial doctrine?
Yeah, Catholic Church have been saying this for ages. It's the American Redneck South you're thinking of.
Many of the early Church fathers interpreted Genesis allegorically. The only thing that the Catholic Church has taught consistently is that the human race descended from a single set of parents (which many biologists and anthropologists believe) and that the "fall" is somehow historical, though told in figurative language. So the Church didn't "finally admit" anything. Likely, it merely clarified for others its position.
I would also note that the ancients are not as naive as we might think. In addition to Jewish scholars, such as Philo of Alexandria, and Church fathers, such as Origen and Augustine, who interpreted biblical texts allegorically; there were ancient Greeks who proposed theories of evolution and general discussion among the Greeks as to whether the poets' accounts of the gods should be taken as literal or figurative. If you read Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods, you will find Balbus (A Stoic) given an allegorical interpretation of the Roman gods in terms of natural philosophy as it was understood in those days.