Q. I have been told that for a Mass of cremation, the body needs to be present and then cremated. I have been to three Catholic funerals lately and the ashes were there, but the body was already cremated. Which is the true situation? Also, for your Catholic Heroes saint column on the same page, please feature St. Jude Thaddeus. Why is he called the patron saint of hopeless causes? What about his life and how he became the saint of the hopeless? — G.P.M., Arizona.
A. The body no longer needs to be present for the funeral of a person who is to be cremated. At their November 1998 meeting, the Catholic bishops of the United States voted to allow a funeral Mass to be celebrated in the presence of cremated remains.
The Church’s Order of Christian Funerals says that the cremated remains “should be treated with the same respect given to the human body from which they come. The cremated remains should be buried in a grave or entombed in a mausoleum or columbarium (a shallow, sealed, recessed niche for ashes). The practice of scattering cremated remains on the sea, from the air, or on the ground, or keeping cremated remains in the home of a relative or friend of the deceased are not the reverent disposition that the Church requires.”
We will suggest to Carole Breslin, author of Catholic Heroes, that she devote a column to St. Jude, if she has not already done so. Coming up with such a column, however, might be difficult to do since there is so little information about Jude. We don’t know why this apostle is considered the patron saint of hopeless causes.
Q. I have read with interest recent fascinating and well-done pieces in The Wanderer concerning two opposing explanations for life on Earth: creation and evolution. It seems to me that people on both sides of this issue are conscientious, diligent believers and yet they both claim, for reasons presented, to have the Church on their side. Is this one of those issues that has not been absolutely, positively proven and, since neither side is heretical, the Church hasn’t taken an official position and allows both concepts to stand? — D.M., via e-mail.
A. We have no expertise on this matter, but here are some of our thoughts for what they’re worth. When talking about evolution, one must distinguish between a theory that posits a common ancestry for humanity and the Darwinian version that rules out overwhelming evidence for intelligent design and insists that the complex nature of our universe is the result of an unplanned, unguided, and random series of circumstances and natural selection.
One of the major problems for proponents of the latter version is the lack of hard scientific evidence to back up their speculative theory. Oh, the authors of biology textbooks, artists, museum exhibitors, and producers of television specials can give the theory some apparent credibility, but still lacking is solid proof that natural selection and chance can produce new species and organisms.
For example, there are huge gaps in the fossil record, that is, there are no transitional forms or “missing links” between species. The fossil record shows that species appear suddenly in a fully developed state and change little or not at all before becoming extinct. Despite more than a century of frenetic fossil-hunting, the fossil record is virtually the same as it was when Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species in 1859.
If fossil studies cannot show changes from a fish to a reptile to a bird to a monkey, or find transitional links between these species, then Darwinism is an unproven theory. Paradoxes that cannot be adequately explained indicate that something is wrong with the evolutionary hypothesis. Some of those who nevertheless rely on this questionable theory seem motivated by an attitude of “anything but God” to account for the diversity and complexity of life.
But even if all the questions are answered, and all the hypotheses are proved, no explanation will make sense unless room is left for the existence of a Creator who planned things this way and started everything in motion. Furthermore, this same Creator must be acknowledged as the source of every human being’s spiritual soul. This is the position of four recent Popes:
First, Pope Pius XII, who said in Humani Generis (1950) that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter — for the Catholic Faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.
“However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation, and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church” (n. 36).
Second, Pope St. John Paul II, who said in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996 that “rather than speak of the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based. Hence the existence of materialist, reductionist, and spiritual interpretations. What is to be decided here is the true role of philosophy and, beyond it, of theology.”
He went on to say that “consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person.”
Third, Pope Benedict XVI, at a meeting with clergy in 2007, commented on the “somewhat fierce debate raging [in Germany and the United States] between so-called ‘creationism’ and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: Those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God.
“This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favor of evolution, which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical questions: Where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man? I believe this is of the utmost importance.”
Fourth, Pope Francis, speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2014, said that “when we read the account of creation in Genesis, we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all-powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created beings, and He let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop and reach their fullness. He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of His continual presence, giving life to every reality. And thus creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all things.”
He said that “the beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Principle who creates out of love. The Big-Bang theory that is proposed today as the origin of the world does not contradict the intervention of a divine Creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of creation because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve….
“The scientist must be moved by the conviction that nature, in its evolutionary mechanism, hides its potential, which it leaves for intelligence and freedom to discover and actualize in order to reach the development that is in the Creator’s design.”
So the Church continues to encourage diligent investigation and study of creation and evolution so that we may someday know with certainty the method that God used to bring human beings and the universe to their present state of development. The ultimate answer will involve no conflict between scientific and religious truth, for God is the Author of both.
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