This is a good point I mentioned myself. While I'm not Catholic and thus may be misunderstanding them, it seems to me that their position is that events may be exactly the same, and perhaps even called random, but would simultaneously be directed. Thus there is a fundamental equivocation going on over the multiple senses of random. I'd add that I don't think science is committed to any one sense. Further I think that the theorems on randomness in information theory would show that it's impossible to tell what is random. This doesn't matter scientifically, but it does philosophically.
 

I completely concur that science itself is no committed. However, many scientists are. Although I'm an athiest, I respect the opinions of many people who are deeply theistic (Hi Mom!). But some very vocal scientists feel that any form of theisism demonstrates feeble-minded irrationalism. On the one hand I'm happy that such committed scientists are willing to confront obfuscation from the Intelligent Design crowd, but on the other hand, they contribute to the general shrillness of the public debate, and push aside the philsophical debate.

The spark for this food-fight has been what children should be taught, and it isn't about this or that scientific law or theory. And the what and how of children's education is ultimately a philosophical matter.
 

Just to note, one can disagree with the meaning without necessarily adopting theism. Take for instance David Bohm's deterministic form of Quantum Mechanics. You still have the randomness of QM we talk about. But it isn't *really* random.
 

And then there's Wolfram's New Kind of Science, where data that appears to be random noise is entirely deterministic, and using only simple rules.