Oh, heavens...

Pope Benedict XVI fired Rev. George V. Coyne, the vatican's astronomer and director of Vatican Observatory since 1978, for advocating evolutionary theory over intelligent design. So here we have another instance of influential religious leaders promoting ID/creationism over evolution despite the fact that scientists overwhelmingly reject the idea. It's things like this that lead to the chart I posted the other day.

Also, why does the vatican have an astronomer on staff?

Update: Due to the firing of Rev. Coyne and Pope Benedict XVI's decision to have a meeting with his former students to discuss evolution, there has been a growing concern that he was planning on taking a new stance on the topic. This article has some more insights from an insider as to what Benedict is going to do regarding evolution. Despite his remarks that "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God." and his expression of doubts towards the idea of "macroevolution", it seems that the pope is going to leave the question of evolution to the scientists to handle.