God a magician? Explaining Pope Francis (again)

Dear [Evangelical friend],

Leave it to Pope Francis to bring us together again.  I have been challenged and chastened by his Ecumenical gestures and exhortations.  Here we are together seeking understanding of Scripture, science, and the authority of the Pope.  Thanks be to God.

Thanks for sending me the brief article about Pope Francis’ recent words about Genesis and your concern about that last quote.  When I read it I didn't quite know what he meant by it because it looks like he’s saying God couldn't just “poof!”, like a magician, make the universe out of nothing and fashion all of Creation in 6 days.  This makes it look like he doesn't have faith in the God of the Bible.  However, this can’t be what he’s saying because it would contradict many of his other teachings that are imbued with faith in God who acts supernaturally.  So, I had to give it some thought to try to understand his meaning.

First of all, however, the article claims that Pope Francis’ teaching on scientific origins and Genesis is in contradiction to Pope Benedict who is described as a creationist.  I don’t think so.  This Wikipedia article on “Catholic Church and evolution” shows a couple significant things:

1. 1.       The section on Pope Benedict demonstrates that he has never taught a 6 day creation of the universe and always deferred to the accepted opinion of the majority of scientists in regards to the natural explanation of the origins of the universe and man.
2. 2.       The Catholic Church has never taught that evolution OR a 6 day creation is true because such questions are a matter of scientific study.
3. 3.       The Catholic Church has always insisted that matters of faith cannot contradict matters of science since the same God reveals Himself, although in different ways and degrees, in both.
4. 4.       The Catholic Church continues to teach that a purely atheistic or naturalistic explanation of the origin of the universe and man is false.  God purposely created the universe and specifically created man in His own image – FACT.  As to a scientific understanding of HOW He did this, the Catholic Church defers to scientists.

As regards #4 above, I surmise this is why Pope Francis speaks of the Big Bang theory with a qualification: the Big Bang, “that today is considered to be the origin of the world” (emphasis mine).  He is acknowledging that the Big Bang is the current scientific understanding of the origin of the universe but that tomorrow, in light of new evidence, might be discarded for another explanation.  The Catholic Church is not going to endorse one or other scientific view of creation, but will lay down what matters of faith must be believed as regards creation.

So, how to understand Pope Francis’ last comment about God as a magician?  I found the transcript of his address in Italian but there is no official (i.e. Vatican) English translation yet.  Using Google to translate the address from Italian I think I get the gist of what he’s saying.  He’s saying that God created the universe gradually and brought forth the world we observe out of natural, presently observable, laws and processes of nature.  God did not miraculously, “poof”, make all the animals instantaneously one day, for example.  In other words, Pope Francis is saying he is NOT a young earth creationist but a theistic evolutionist.  I noticed that he did not cite any previous Popes, Scripture, or Church teaching when he gave this teaching, which indicates that he’s expressing his personal opinion on the matter and not dogma.

What do you think about my reading of his statement?  What is your concern that he might be saying?