A quite possibly belated apology from the Church of England to Charles Darwin:

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 practise the old virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope that makes some amends.

No word yet on whether he’s decided to accept it or not.

Still, Ann Widdecombe isn’t happy:

It’s absolutely ludicrous. Why don’t we have the Italians apologising for Pontius Pilate? We’ve already apologised for slavery and for the Crusades. When is it all going to stop? It’s insane and makes the Church of England look ridiculous.

Surprisingly for Anne Widdecombe, she just might have a point.

Whoops: it turns out that, rather than being an official apology of any kind, the words above just form part of a more general essay on Darwin and religion released on the Church of England website. I should have known better than to take the Telegraph at face value.