I read with interest Fr Daniel O’Leary’s article (“Divine evolution”, 23 August). As a biologist and a Catholic, I have long been familiar and comfortable with evolution and very puzzled by those who do not accept it – truth is, after all, truth; scientific or spiritual, and whether it fits your views or not.The stories of Creation and Adam and Eve are allegorical, and were clearly understood as such by their audience. Their message was that only God was the Creator who made the universe and his people from, and in the image of, himself – not, as the surrounding cultures taught, by being reformed by a series of other gods from pre-existing matter. This was an important lesson for the Israelites then and is still an important and pertinent lesson for us