By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
The January 22 edition of First Teachers was devoted to syndicated columnist Joseph Farah’s disagreement with Pope Francis on the question of evolution. Farah took issue with Francis’ assertion that the theory of “evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”
Farah described the Pope’s position as “his story” of creation, not “His story,” going on to ask, “If the Fall of Man is just an allegory, one wonders why Jesus would have had to come to atone for man’s sins?” Farah added, “If the pope doesn’t believe the foundational aspect of the Bible, does he believe any of it? If he does, he really owes the Christian world an explanation of which parts of the Bible he believes and which he discounts.”
First Teachers backed the Pope in this contretemps. But many of our readers wrote to express their backing for Farah’s position. A.S. of Gainesville, Fla., writes, “When did it become fashionable for Catholics to regard Genesis as a mere collection of stories, myths, and pious legends? Pius XII was alarmed by this trend.” A.S. adds, “I’ve read the Catechism of the Catholic Church from cover to cover and nowhere does it tell me that I must accept evolution.”
A.S. quotes from Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis to support his point. In that encyclical, Pius warned of those, who, “desirous of novelty and fearing to be considered ignorant of recent scientific findings, try to withdraw themselves from the sacred Teaching Authority and are accordingly in danger of gradually departing from revealed truth and of drawing others along with them into error.”
A.S. adds, “If God was indeed the author of Sacred Scripture, I would think that God’s account in Genesis trumps the speculation of a fallen-away Christian (Darwin) who embraced agnosticism. God was a witness to what happened in prehistoric times, Darwin wasn’t.”
He continues, “What kind of fruit has the theory of evolution produced? Massive disbelief and atheism. If you sow doubt and disbelief about Genesis, you’ll reap doubt and disbelief about the Resurrection. That’s why I don’t understand why so many Catholics, and even some recent Popes, are so eager to get behind evolution and promote and defend it.” A.S. is convinced that “there is no way to prove or disprove evolution. Therefore, evolution is outside the scope of science, strictly speaking. If evolution is science, it’s perhaps the squishiest of the soft sciences. It will never be anything more than speculation and wishful thinking.”
A.S. describes what he believes the leaders of the Church implicitly concede when they speak favorably of evolution, even “theistic evolution,” the theory that God initiated the evolutionary process and, somewhere along the line, infused a soul into the evolving creature that became man: “God becomes irrelevant to these processes . . . even if God exists, existing is pretty much all He does because He’s basically unemployed. This is the standard, atheistic view of evolution that’s taught in schools throughout America.” A.S. states flatly, “There’s no reason for Catholics to defer to Darwin. Darwinism, as it’s taught in schools, is atheism dressed up to look like science. It’s thinly veiled philosophical materialism.”
What of the “evidence” the Darwinists offer? A.S. responds, “Science will never be able to refute or disprove that Adam and Eve were the first human couple. The ape-like skulls of presumed hominid ancestors in no way prove that these skulls are ancestrally linked to Adam and Eve. It takes faith to accept such an ancestral link. It’s more likely that such skulls belonged to extinct apes.”
A.S. asks us to consider the implications of the “polygenism” central to Darwin’s theories, the belief that there were millions of evolving creatures on earth, “true men who did not take their origin through” Adam. A.S. asks us to weigh this belief in the light of Pius XII’s teaching in Humani Generis that original sin “proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own.”
He points out that if “evolution were true, polygenism would be inevitable at the advent of Adam and Eve, unless all the other ‘ape-men’ suddenly died out — leaving Adam and Eve as the only two left standing.” A.S. is of the opinion that the recent Popes — Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis — who have spoken on evolution owe it to the world’s Catholics to explain exactly what has changed since Pius XII issued his warnings about Darwin’s theories in Humani Generis.
A.S. closes with the following: “Evolution/Darwinism is today’s most powerful battering ram for atheism, which is rampant and spreading. As atheism spreads, Catholicism recedes. That’s an excellent reason for Catholics to reject and oppose evolution. But the primary reason to reject it is because it’s false.”
Another reader, J.C., agrees with A.S. He writes, “I have always been baffled why Catholics and some other Christians are so uncomfortable with literal interpretations of the Bible. The discomfort seems to arise from misconceptions about science. Pope John Paul II seemed to think that evolution was ‘more than a hypothesis,’ but that is exactly what it is. In regard to their profession, scientists must keep open minds to question everything, even ‘settled theories.’ The ‘big bang’ and ‘evolution’ theories are both hypotheses and will never qualify as theories unless someone has the ingenuity to design an experiment that will test them.
“We have all seen what selective breeding and natural selection can do, but as far as I know, there has been no experiment resulting in the creation of a new species.”
Yet another reader, P.L.C. from Willow, Alaska, writes to ask a question I have never thought about before. See what you think. “I read with interest the column about the Pope’s comments on evolution,” he writes. “There is a question extant among believers about evolution and the Immaculate Conception: If Adam and Eve had apes as parents, then they were conceived without original sin. But does not the Catholic Church’s teaching about the Immaculate Conception hold that the Blessed Mother is the only person to have been born without original sin? I do not know the answer. Can you or one of your readers help with this?”
My initial response is that there is no puzzle to be solved: that original sin applies only to those who were born after Adam and Eve; that our first parents were created by God without the inclination to evil that followed upon their first sin, and that Mary is unique in being spared from that taint. But I may be missing something that our readers can expand upon. We welcome their input.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford CT 06492.
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