Googler wrote:

AP Story:

The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design"
isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest
high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in
the United States.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Vatican_Evolution.html

From
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&program=News&id=3015&callingPage=discoMainPage

Discovery Institute Welcomes Pope's Embrace of "Intelligent Project"
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
November 9, 2005

Seattle - Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman hailed an
impromptu statement Wednesday by Pope Benedict XVI embracing the
"intelligent project" that lies behind nature. "Fooled by atheism," the
Pope said, many people today "think, and try to demonstrate, that
everything is without direction and order..."

Instead, said the pope, "Through sacred Scripture, the Lord awakens the
reason that sleeps, and tells us that in the beginning is the creative
word, the creative reason, that has created everything, that has
created this intelligent project of the cosmos."

In attendance at the Pope's regular Wednesday audience where the
comments were made was Christoph Cardinal Schonborn of Austria, a
friend and collaborator of the Pope who has written a number or
articles critical of scientific materialism and defending tradition
Catholic concepts of the intelligibility of design in nature. "It may
be that the Pope was implicitly showing support for the Cardinal's
work," said Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman in Seattle.
Many of the scientists active in the intelligent design movement are
affiliated with Discovery Institute.

"Scientists exploring the idea of design in nature," said Chapman, "are
bound to be encouraged by yet another indication that Pope Benedict is
standing firm on the church's traditional opposition to materialist
philosophy in science and other fields. The Pope's statement about
'the reason that sleeps' shows that he, like Cardinal Schonborn,
sees the crucial issue as not whether one can know the order in nature
by faith, but whether human reason is capable of grasping design."

"Further, he seems to be cautioning those who have been claiming Church
endorsement of the full-bodied, design-defeating version of Darwin's
theory of evolution, which, after all, is often little more than
philosophical materialism applied to science," added Chapman.

Chapman noted that in his very first homily as Pope, Benedict XVI had
rebuked the idea that human beings are mere products of evolution, and
that, like his predecessor, John Paul II, the new Pope has a long
record of opposition to scientific materialism.

Chapman also said that the Pope's latest statement is likely to call
further attention to the series of nine catechetical lectures on
evolution and creation that Cardinal Schonborn is in the midst of
delivering.