I suspect a lot of non-Catholics would be surprised by the Vatican’s position on creation, cosmology, evolution, the literalness (or lack thereof) of Genesis etc. A Jesuit priest would probably be considered a heretic by the average American Evangelical.
FWIW Catholic universities were using On the Origin of Species within five years of its publication. After the 1925 Scopes monkey trial, catholic parochial schools in Tennessee were almost the only ones to continue teaching evolution.
In general most non-Catholics have a poor conception of what the Catholic Church actually believes, and what practicing Catholics actually think. They would be surprised at the depth, if they so choose to ask.
Ask one of these famed Catholics how they feel about democracy or gender equality and they are just like all the other Christians. After all they get their orders from the same book.
> Ask one of these famed Catholics how they feel about democracy
"Other nations need to reform certain unjust structures, and in particular their political institutions, in order to replace corrupt, dictatorial and authoritarian forms of government by democratic and participatory ones." Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, Pope St. John Paul II (1987)
"The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate. Thus she cannot encourage the formation of narrow ruling groups which usurp the power of the State for individual interests or for ideological ends." Encyclical Centesimus annus, Pope St. John Paul II (1991)
"People sometimes complain of the slowness with which an authentic democracy progresses, yet it continues, if used well, to be the most effective historical instrument for ensuring its own future in a way befitting to human beings. [...] Democracy will attain its full actualization only when every person and each people have access to the primary goods (life, food, water, health care, education, work and the certainty of their rights) through an ordering of internal and international relations that assures each person of the possibility of participating in them." Address to members of the "Centesimus Annus" Foundation, Pope Benedict XVI (2006)
"[...] we can think about the crisis of democracy as a wounded heart. That which limits participation is right before our eyes. If corruption and illegality reveal a 'heart attack', then different forms of social exclusion must also be a concern. Every time someone is marginalized, the whole social body suffers." Address at the pastoral visit to Trieste on the occasion of the 50th Social Week of Italian Catholics, Pope Francis (2024)
