The Church of England today issued an apology to Charles Darwin, in a bizarre posthumous statement that one church official likened to Pope John Paul II’s apology to Galileo for his 1633 trial by the Vatican. In an essay by Rev. Malcolm Brown, the church’s director of mission and public affairs, the Church of England said it was sorry for its vilification of Darwin’s evolutionary theories:

“The trouble with homo sapiens is that we’re only human. People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights.”

He concludes:

“Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope that makes some amends.”

Andrew Darwin, a great-great grandson of the author of evolutionary theory called the apology “pointless” in a Daily Mail article. “Why bother?” he said. “When an apology is made after 200 years, it’s not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organisation making the apology feel better.”

Ann Widdecomb, a former Conservative minister who left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic, said the apology made the church look “ridiculous.” “It’s absolutely ludicrous,” she said. “Why don’t we have the Italians apologizing for Pontius Pilate?”

Charles Darwin is buried at Westminster Abbey, which a great-grandson, Horace Barlow, called “an apology of sorts.”