Let's continue our week-long
deconstruction of a victim-turned-persecutor (I was going to say
"crusader", but that's a no-no word nowadays… right, George?).
If you haven't been following the action, here's what we've dealt with so far:
With the effigy of Galileo
once again propped up for the gullible and agenda-vulnerable, John Wojnowski's
execrable broadside continues with a second scarecrow, Charles Darwin:
Ignorance
and cowardice also explains why the know-it-all original bigots and the
inventors of anti-Semitism needed over a century to concede that Darwin was
also right and evolution is indeed a fact.
First of all, let me say
this, bluntly: prove that, John. Where do you get this "over a century" figure? From when to when? Based on what Church publication or
teaching? Are you pulling numbers out of the air? Hello? John? Burden of proof?
Let's ignore his rehashing of
that tired, old, and long-disproved anti-Semitism lie a moment, and cast our
own Catholic eye on Mr. Beagle. Charles Darwin published his "On
the Origin of Species" in 1859. If this is where Wojnowski
begins his "over a century", that would put the Church's
"concession" of evolution well into my own lifetime. Right? Wrong.
Real numbers: On June 30, 1909 (that's half a century's
span, John), the Pontifical Biblical Commission – with the
approval of Pope (St.) Pius IX – published "De
charactere historico trium priorum capitum Geneseos", or – for those of you
who skipped high-school Latin – "The Historic Character of the First
Three Chapters of Genesis". Here it is stated that the Church views the first three
chapters of the Biblical book of Genesis (i.e., the creation account) as
historically correct. But remember: it's not a textbook on geology, or on
physics, nor even a blow-by-blow, exactingly precise account of history.
Using common-at-the-time
literary forms/illustrations (e.g., "days" for "stages" or
"phases" of creation), Genesis leads off with the creation of the
universe – what we now call the Big Bang ("Let there be light!") –
scaling downward to the formation of the Earth, and to its population by
increasingly complex forms of life, all the way down to you and me. Assume a
logarithmic scale.
The Commission stated that
this presentation was accurate. Indeed, the process/progression presented in
Genesis matches up with that deduced by science (excepting deity, of course…
which isn't the job of science anyway). What the Commission did not bother to
deal with was the question of the greater details of this progression. That is,
it did not narrow the definition of Catholic faith, teaching, and doctrine to
exclude any credence granted what Darwin had set forth half a century earlier.
So, it seems to me, there's
plenty of room for all kinds of critters between "Day" Five, and well
into "Day" Six: Fred Flintstone, Lucy (Dinkenesh, that is, not Ball), Alley-Oop, whomever.
Some more real numbers, John:
On August 12, 1950, Pope Pius XII issued his encyclical on evolution, "Humani
Generis". James Stenson sums up this encyclical in his 1984 article, "Evolution: A Catholic Perspective", extracting the
essence of the encyclical vis-à-vis the needless "debate" on
evolution:
With
a few terse paragraphs, he [i.e.,
Pope Pius] set forth the Church's position, which we may summarize as
follows:
- The question of the origin of man's body from pre-existing and living matter is a legitimate matter of inquiry for natural science. Catholics are free to form their own opinions, but they should do so cautiously; they should not confuse fact with conjecture, and they should respect the Church's right to define matters touching on Revelation.
- Catholics must believe, however, that the human soul was created immediately by God. Since the soul is a spiritual substance[,] it is not brought into being through transformation of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each person.
- All men [and women] have descended from an individual, Adam, who has transmitted original sin to all mankind. Catholics may not, therefore, believe in "polygenism," the scientific hypothesis that mankind descended from a group of original humans.
So, from the Catholic point
of view, the scientific questions of evolution are largely left open to debate.
Evolutionary hypotheses which attempt to explain the development of living
things may be accepted except where they conflict with these few explicit
truths.
To give him the benefit of
the doubt, it's possible that John Wojnowski is inadvertently skipping at least
one thumb when he's counting up to a hundred on his fingers. Otherwise,
"over a century" would technically have him off by ten years: 1950 -
1859 = 91 years, or actually two thumbs per decade, plus one year to grow on.
The only other possibilities
are that a) he's relying on lousy hearsay – and you
are too, if you accept at face value what he's written; b) he really didn't do
any research before printing up his vile handouts… this is at the least very
inexcusably sloppy, given what he's trying to proclaim; c) he's deliberately slanting
and/or falsifying the evidence; and/or d)
he's out-and-out lying. This is particularly disturbing… not to mention a
malicious disservice to all genuine sufferers of abuse at the hands of our
priests.
And he dares
decry "ignorance
and cowardice".
Yet so far those are the only crayons he's coloring with.
Tomorrow: responding to
anti-Semitism. (Shoot; I forgot to address the other slanderous phrase, "know-it-all original bigots".)
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