The point often made by so-called Catholics who claims to be evolutionists (the same point made by Mr MacFarland) is that the Church Fathers didn't intent to "teach science", therefore we are free to hold contrary views, if facts point elsewhere. This is true. The Church is open to provable facts. This is the whole point of “Providentissimus Deus” - the Church is saying 1) ok, there's all these supposed "new facts" regarding evolution and creation. We'll look into it. 2) In the meantime, the Church declares that She is always open to facts and science because TRUE science (i.e. what man can know through his reason) can NEVER contradict Faith.
Fast forward to 2019, which is 126 years AFTER “Providentissimus Deus”. Are there certifiable, reproducible and experimentally tested facts which prove that evolution (or any of the 1,000 different variations of it) is true? Have any of the "scientifically accepted" theories been proved using the scientific method? Are there any facts that would cause Holy Mother Church to abandon Her simple, child-like, faith-filled belief in Genesis' story of Creation? No, no and no.
In absence of solid proof for evolution, in the age of technology we live in, and with modern man having 125 years to prove that the Bible was wrong, he has yet to do so. So the farce of evolution must be flushed down the scientific toilet as a waste of time.
Sorry to tell you Pax, but 'Holy Mother Church' has fallen under the spell of the Galilean Reformation so you will never see a return to tradition. You see Mother Church is ruled by men,
prideful men, and no Catholic will ever return to, as Archbishop Lefebvre put it also,
Her simple child like faith in the literal Genesis. There will be no going back to Holy Mother Church of 1616 when popes began to defend Genesis against pure false theory, man made 'science.' This is because in 1820 popes modernised Genesis rather than face down the Galilean heretics in the Church at the time. 32 years later Henry Newman now ready to be made a saint, laid out his revision of Scripture based on the 'lesson' of the Galileo case, and Catholicism was plunged into taking Darwinism and long ages as a probable truth.
But there were many other things churchmen did as a result of that terrible 'embarrassing' geocentric decree of 1616. Galileo was made look like a saint saving Scripture from false faith and science. And in order to prevent any further ERRORS due to false science like geocentrism, they ressurected Galileo's Lincean Academy, the bunch that promoted the fixed sun heresy in Galileo's time, as the Catholic Church's own SCIENTIFIC ACADEMY.
Pope Leo XIII was trapped by two decrees of popes that allowed the fixed-sun biblical heresy enter Mother Church. Thus Providentissimus deus had to accommodate this concession to 'science.' Oh yes, it was written to stop further attacks on Scripture and thus contains all the stuff you pointed out above. However, he had to cover what two popes had allowed, that heretical concession to a fixed sun Genesis.
'Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science.'Yes, like sun rise and sun set! that is all they needed to carry on their concessions to man-made science. And that is why PD had no effect in stopping the reinterpretation of Scripture.
In 1936, Pope Pius XI renamed the Church's Academy as The Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
The goals and the hopes of the Academy, within the context of the dialogue between faith and science, were aired by Pius XI in his Motu Proprio which brought about its re-foundation:
‘Amongst the many consolations with which divine Goodness has wished to make happy the years of our Pontificate, I am happy to place that of our having being able to see not a few of those who dedicate themselves to the studies of the sciences mature their attitude and their intellectual approach towards religion.…. We promise again, and it is our strongly-held intention, that the “Pontifical Academicians,” through their work and our Institution, work ever more and ever more effectively for the progress of the sciences. Of them we do not ask anything else, since in this praiseworthy intent and this noble work is that service in favour of the truth that we expect of them.’[1]
[1] Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, filled with atheists, agnostics, Copernicans, Galileans, long aged Big bangists, Darwinian evolutionists, other worlders, Alien lovers etc., etc., BUT NOT ONE KNOWN CREATIONIST (they are classed as Protestants) when it is the heliocentrists who read the Bible according to their interpretation who are the real Protestants.
In a 2003 PAS book on the speeches by popes to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences it lists 16 addresses by Pope Pius XI from 1923 to 1938. Following him they list 9 by Pope Pius XII from 1939 to 1957. After Pius XII came Pope John XXIII’s two addresses in 1961 and 1962. The next Pope who addressed the Academy was John Paul II; 35 times, from 1979 to 2002.[1]
[1] http://www.pas.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv100.pdfSince Pius XII told this CHurch science advisory Academy that the Big Bang was God's creative act in 1952, there is not a chance in hell that you will ever see a return to tradition. Every one of the above popes praised Copernicus Galileo and modern science in their speeches not one dared challenge any science, all they did was try to make it fit in with Genesis. You see they wanted to look like they were SANE talking to the likes of Stephen Hawking the atheist.
Finally, to defend the Genesis of St Thomas it would mean admitting popes since 1741 got it wrong and allowed the flock to believe false philosophy. Pigs will fly before that happens, or rather Pope francis WILL BAPTISE A MARTIAN as he said he would before that happens. Fr Robinson then is only doing what Pius XII and every other pope since 1820 said he could do. Had one of them dogmatised something then that would have stopped it. But after the Galileo case, they made sure no more dogmas like geocentrism would happen.