EVOLUTION & CREATION - A Catholic Understanding by Rev. William 
Kramer This book has the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur markings. 
Starting page 113:

"In the PASTORAL CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH IN THE MODERN WORLD 
the Second Vatican Council recalled the statement of Vatican I 
that there are two autonomous sources of knowledge, faith and 
reason, and that there can be no real conflict between them. 
Modern conditions tend to purify religions of remnants of magic 
and superstition so that many are achieving a more vivid sense 
of God (No.7). The independence of temporal affairs does not 
mean they can be used without reference to the Creator, 'for 
without the Creator the creature would vanish' (No. 36).

The Council deplores habits of mind sometimes found among 
Christians 'which do not sufficiently attend to the rightful 
independence of science.' As the note to No. 36 (above) 
indicates, this was a deliberate reference to the condemnation 
of Galileo, and may be taken as an apology for the unfortunate 
and unwise action taken by Church agencies in the seventeenth 
century. Pope John Paul II, in an address to the Pontifical 
Academy of Sciences on November 10, 1979 (Origins, p. 391), 
goes further in making amends, praising Galileo for his 
admirable understanding or the relation between faith and 
science and his insight into the interpretation of Scripture.

In another speech to the scientific community on October 3, 
1981, he speaks of the creation of the universe in this way: 
'Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was 
created by God, and in order to teach this truth[sic] it 
expresses itself in terms of the cosmology in use at the time 
of the writer.... Any other teaching about the origin and 
makeup of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, 
which does no wish to teach how heaven was made but how one 
goes to heaven' (Origins, p. 279).

This is an obvious reference to Galileo's famous saying (based 
on Augustine): 'The Bible does not teach us how the heavens go, 
but how to go to heaven.' One would have to be fairly dense not 
to see that it was the pope's intention to warn against 
repeating the mistake of the Galileo case by condemning the 
scientific theory of evolution on the basis of a faulty 
interpretation of the Bible.

After this, an occasional reference to evolution by the pope 
should raise no eyebrows. In April 1985 he had this to say at a 
symposium on evolution: "Rightly comprehended faith in creation 
or a correctly understood teaching of evolution does not create 
obstacles: Evolution in fact presupposes creation; creation 
situates itself in the light of evolution as an event which 
extends itself through time -- as a continual creation -- in 
which God becomes visible to the eyes of the believer as 
'creator of heaven and earth'' (National Catholic Register, May 
12, 1985).

On June 21, 1985, the Holy Father spoke to a group of 
scientists on stellar evolution, as was reported in the July 
15, 1985, edition of L'Osservatore Romano (pp. 11-12):

   It is wonderful to see how much has been understood concerning 
   the structure of stars - their birth, life and death, the 
   origin and structure of galaxies, the formation of elements and 
   other building blocks of physical reality in the early 
   universe, and the interlocking roles of fundamental interaction 
   and processes, in the large and in the small.

   These scientific achievements proclaim the dignity of the human 
   being and greatly clarify man's unique role in the universe.

On January 29, 1986, the pope restate his view of evolution in 
a general audience: 'Indeed, the theory of natural evolution, 
understood in a sense that does not exclude divine causality, 
is not in principle opposed to the truth[sic] about creation of 
the visible world, as presented in the Book of Genesis' (The 
Wanderer, February 20, 1986).

In this country the bishops of Louisiana, as a guide to their 
people during the creationism-in-schools controversy raging in 
their state, issued in 1983 a statement in much the same 
language we have already seen: Scripture does not teach 
science, and commentators of the past did not settle the issue 
of how Scripture is to be interpreted concerning the origin of 
things. The bishops conclude with this admonition: 'Christians 
should not reduce biblical truths[sic] which are so rich and 
profoundly spiritual to the level of uncritical or simplistic 
literalism. This would rob the Scriptures of their genuine 
meaning and salvific power' (Origins, p. 603).

From all this it should be clear that six-day creationism is 
badly out of tune with the teaching Church, which has slowly 
and cautiously accepted the prevailing scientific ideas and 
language of evolution and become comfortable with it, just as 
it learned earlier to think in heliocentric terms and of a 
spherical earth. Prior to that time the Church never taught 
that the earth was flat or that the sun went around it, even 
though there were times when most churchmen thought so. Now it 
does not teach that the world evolved, or is round, or orbits 
the sun. That is not its commission. These easy references to 
scientific theories merely assure us that they are not in 
conflict with the faith."