Three key elements in the Catholic Catechism are:
390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man’.
745: The Son of God was consecrated as Christ (Messsiah) by the anointing of the Holy Spirit at his Incarnation.
1060: At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. Then the just will reign with Christ forever, glorified in body and soul, and the material universe itself will be transformed. God will then be ‘all in all’ (1Cor 15:28) in eternal life.
Pope Francis said ‘Faith is not fearful of reason; since the light of reason and the light of faith both come from God and cannot contradict each other ... Whenever the sciences – rigorously focused on their specific field of enquiry – arrive at a conclusion which reason cannot refute, faith does not contradict it.’ Science has no problem with CC 745. By his life, death and resurrection, Christ proved his nature was both human and divine – a fact attested by many, contemporary witnesses. Thomas also put the bodily resurrection of Christ to the scientific test of touch.

Neither has science any problem with CC 1060 saying space-time universe began with the Big Bang at an historic beginning in time, is still expanding, and is destined for a finite end.

Original sin seen as a transcendental catastrophe, causing the Big Bang, reconciles faith and reason and resolves the problem of theodicy.

Kim
You make some good points:..."Science is purely the pursuance of truth. The scientific method is the method of objective pursuance of truth".... And it "pursues the truth" only about "objective facts" of the material world.. It is not concerned with "faith" or "morals" or the "spiritual realm"

Of course "Science" as we know it, is something that developed gradually over the Church history time-line. We used to think that everything we think of as Science was "in the Bible" and the Bible was inerrant about evrerything. Gradually we learned that the Bible was just talking about "faith and morals"...and was not always defining even "morals" definitively for all time in every passage.

So we reject polygamy, and Abraham pawning Sarah off as his siter so that the Pharoah could put her in his harem, and Peter had the great vision about no foods being unclean, etc. etc.

we generally don't condemn scientists, as we did with Galileo, on grounds that discoveries don't agree with the Bible.

Yet the Church's function, it would seem, is to learn from Science, and advise us as to any moral or faith implications.

We seem to have gradually learned that we can accept evolution, and that it does not really contradict faith or Bible. And in the process learned that the Biblical Creation stories are a myth literary form of writing.

Church Theology needs to consider Science seriously and guide us on how to incorporate it into our faith world view.

Thank you so much for this reflection. To my embarrassment, as much as I already was tracking the bizarreness of neo-cons claiming the Church cannot speak about science from the heart of this profoundly incarnational faith, I was not thinking of the many members of the Church who are scientists--shame on me! Your blog was extremely helpful also about the number of times climate change was mentioned -- it is much easier to distract with that rather than face the gaze of Jesus.

Kim says the scientific method is the objective pursuance of truth. However it is in practice the construction of a theory that fits the facts known to date and the continuing questioning of this theory until further facts undermine it and causes a new theory to come into existence. Only a small number of dogmatic scientists would claim to have the "truth".

The pope has every right to decide on the evidence, as have we all, to conclude that we agree with the overwhelmingly number of climate scientists who say that the modern climate changes have been brought about by human activity which we need to modify. And further that we in the rich world are largely responsible and that the poor are the first to suffer the effects.

In response to Kim:

Your comment illustrates my point, in that you also seek to reduce the scope of the encyclical to "... global warming \ global cooling \ climate change ...". PLEASE read the whole encyclical and then tell me if His Holiness is obsessing or in any way misrepresenting the overwhelming scientific consensus on that particular issue. When you say that climate "science is definitely not 'settled'" it makes me wonder how much time you spend with climate scientists. Call in by the Hadley Centre or the Tyndall Centre and see what their take is on this. Surely the words of actual climate scientist should take precedence over vague slurs over a "losing horse". Can I recommend an article in the current issue of Geoscientist to put you in the picture on current climate research: https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist/July-2015/Steps-and-cycles

Tell me what part of that you dispute?

By your standards, relativity, evolution and plate tectonics are also 'not settled' - whereas all those who study them properly know that is a gross mis-representation.

Finally, my closing point is your opening one: the application of science should be subject to morality. It is not 'autonomous' from faith-based ethics.

Science, of itself, is not of a moral nature. It is the application of science that is of a moral nature. Science is purely the pursuance of truth. The scientific method is the method of objective pursuance of truth.

Cardinal Pell is perfectly right in what he said. The pope \ the Church should not be making pronouncements on science, particularly not on global warming \ global cooling \ climate change which is an area where the science is definitely not 'settled'.

To back a losing horse, particularly by the Church can be very damaging.

JPII did a very good job because he understood what was important and where the domain of the Church lay. BXVI rather lost things. F seems to have gone right off the reservation.