So if Popes believe in evolution, How do Adam & Eve come into the picture? They evolved? Or god still plopped those two down and then evolution started? And doesn't the church believe that the world was created by god in 4004BC? Which wouldn't mesh with current evolutionary theories.
Ahh, the beauty of symbolic interpretation!!
1st--Adam and Eve
When God formed Adam from clay--We are talking about the life processes and evolutionary steps symbolized by the Pre-modial "clay" which eventually produced the organism known Homo sapien.
The forming of Eve from Adam maybe an incorrect symbolic reference to how the male form is shaped from the non-sex/female form in the Uterus. Which by the way act as the final "Kiln" to form human life!!
Also, the issue of time is simple to explain. If you take each of the names of the Descendants of Adam and an Ancient map of the Mesopotamia(plus some history on the leaders there), you would notice a startling conclusion--Most of those names are associated to cities!!
The "family tree" of Adam is actually the map depicting the growth of man kinds society and expansion. It is a symbolic description as to how the earliest human cities began and expanded.
Hey, once we have symbolic interpretation as a tool, we can make sense out of any madness!!