Dear Lorenzo:

You are interpreting the Genesis record with extreme literalness. You cannot do that. The Genesis record is not a science report, it is a religious message. The Oral History from which it is based was not concerned about the actual literal mechanism of creation, but with the fact that God is the Creator and God is a God of order.

If the writer of Genesis did not intend to write a science of creation, it is ridiculous, presumptuous, and arrogant for us to do so.

It is the RELIGIOUS message that matters.

Nevertheless, one can be a good Catholic and believe about the Genesis record as you please with three exceptions:

There are only three things that the Catholic Church insists upon concerning evolution:

1) God exists and God is the Creator. The scientific theory of evolution does not disprove either of these facts (any science that tries to assert Evolution as an alternative to God or as proof that God does not exist or is not the Creator is out-of-line and to assert such a thing is not science,  just as much as religious people may be out-of-line to assert religious theories as science when they are not)

2) We do have an original pair of human parents, which in Genesis story happened to be named Adam and Eve (actually science has pretty much proved that the human race can be traced to a single pair)

3) The Soul is not evolved, but is specifically and individually created by God imbued within the human person at the very moment of conception.

Other than these three provisos the Church has no problems letting science be science and do its job to try to explain with the scientific method the origins of species and of the universe. There is nothing in science "as science" that is inconsistent with the Faith.

From a religious point-of-view, God is God and he can create as he pleases. If He created the big bang and all the rest evolved from there, so be it. If He created the Grand Canyon in one second and only made it look like it was created over millions of years, He has the power to do that, so be it. Who cares, from a religious point-of-view?

From a religious point-of-view the Genesis story of creation is not science nor is it meant to be. The point of the Genesis story is not HOW the universe was created, but WHO created it. Anything beyond that is mere speculation theologically.

The debate on creation reminds me of a interchange between Job and God in Job 38:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.  "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?  "Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,  and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?

It is shear arrogance to tell God how He is to create the universe. When anyone questions how God does things and applies puny human wisdom to the matter is arrogance.

To insist that God cannot have created the world through the mechanism of evolution is shear arrogance too. God has the power create as He desires.

How did God do it? Don't know, don't care. All that matters is that God is the Creator.

Did God create the world in six days? Unlikely, but He could if He wanted. Did He create the world through a process of evolution? The physical evidence seems to show that at least to some degree, but other evidence contradicts. God can work that way is He wants. The Church leaves the question of scientific explanations of mechanisms to science to answer as long as the three provisos listed above are respected.

Bottomline, for a Christian: God is the creator, regardless of the mechanism.

Here is the speech from Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: On Evolution.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary