letters from our readers

A true believer in Darwinian evolution

Editor: Another HPR letter writer (Herman Baumgartner, Houston, TX, HPR April 2000) wants to trash evolutionary theory. I fail to see the relevance of this type of discussion in a Catholic publication since the Church officially tolerates the theory of biological evolution within due limits. Nevertheless, Mr. Baumgartner wants to argue about matters which are of no theological significance and which the Church does not hold to be controversial. If you read the literature carefully, the Magisterium’s primary concern with regard to evolution is the origin of man, not the origin of life or of biodiversity.

While I laud Mr. Baumgartner’s admissions about microevolution, I am saddened by his reservations about macroevolution. Frankly the difference is notional at best. From the scientific viewpoint, all evolutionary changes are microevolutionary changes. The resulting phenotypic diversity that is called macroevolution results from these changes occurring cumulatively over time. Contrary to the pretensions of the Pseudo-Creationists, the changes called for by evolution are not always imperceptible, gradual, or constant in tempo. It is also false to expect simple linear series of transitional forms proceeding neatly through time with one species replacing another. Offspring often look quite different than their parents so that there can be a “quantum” choppiness to evolutionary changes between succeeding generations. After reproductive isolation, speciation can occur fairly rapidly in comparison to the lifespan of a species. As such “daughter” species can develop while the “parent” species remains unchanged. The underlying biochemical mechanisms by which these changes can happen are well understood and there is no need to invoke “magical” creation events to explain the emergence of new species.

The questions Mr. Baumgartner lists are the same tired ones the Pseudo-Creationists always trot out. He assumes that our lack of complete understanding of some biological phenomena invalidates our findings elsewhere. This is fallacious. If you are trying to prove the existence of Swiss cheese but limit your sampling only to the holes, you will find nothing. By using this method of looking only at the lacunae in our knowledge, Pseudo-Creationists do this same thing.

I have several brief answers to the questions posed:
Feathers are modified scales. We now know that they developed in small dinosaurs as covering possibly to contain body heat. There are several new species of dinosaur from China which have such feathers preserved. Exactly how this happened has not been fully worked out, but recent chemical studies of feathers have given some new insights into their origin. No “magic” is needed to explain their origin.

We have very little material in the fossil record on the viscera (e.g., the avian lung) so we do not have a clear picture of how they developed. However there are several scientific theories about how the avian lung evolved, none of which require “magic.”

The origin of life has nothing to do with Darwin’s theory of evolution per se. Darwin’s theory states that given the nature of reproducing life, biodiversity can come about by descent with modification via natural selection. You must assume the existence of life before you can propose the theory. Technically, life did not “evolve” from non-life. At this point in our knowledge we don’t know where life came from. It could have come from Outer Space or from volcanic vents in the ocean. Regardless of where it came from, Darwin’s principles still hold.

Cells developed from coacervate droplets in which biochemical processes became concentrated. Complex eukaryote cells started out as cooperative colonies of different types of prokaryote cells, which eventually pooled (most of their) genetic material so that they could reproduce as a single unit. A similar process of cooperation led to the development of eukaryote multicellular organisms like us. This does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. It is actually cheaper for cells to cooperate together to increase the quality of life for each individual cell. We see the same benefits in human civilization. If you had to fend for yourself, would you be able to build cars, televisions, computers, or household appliances for your personal use? Specializing in one occupation and using mass production make more goods and services available at lower cost. In the grand scheme of things, specialized body cells are simpler and cheaper to run than totipotent amoebae that must fend for themselves in everything.

Despite Mr. Behe’s pretensions, comparative biochemistry does support Darwinian mechanisms of evolution. The allegedly “irreducibly complex” systems Behe dazzles the uninformed with are nothing of the kind. The reasons why Behe “cannot imagine” how such things could evolve without “intelligent design” are

1. he has a very poor imagination
2. he wasn’t listening in class when they covered that stuff
3. he has not read the relevant literature
4. he is so prejudiced against evolution that he refuses to believe in it
5. he thinks that a “magic” creation of complex systems out of nothing is more plausible than a prosaic explanation using only the known laws of physics and chemistry.

Arthur C. Sippo MD, MPH
Holland, Ohio

There is some hope

Editor: Your current [April] back page column in HPR was excellent. It summarizes well the situation today. Yet there is some hope. I had the students at St. Mary’s High School write recently an essay on “Someone I Admire.” They were outstanding, so sincere and thoughtful. People they admired were Christ, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, teachers. I was very pleased.

We now have here Mother Angelica. Your weekly explanation of the Bible is very good. I had a dentist recently tell me how much he was learning about the faith.

Rev. Rawley Myers
Colorado Springs, Colo.

A return to Confession?

Editor: It seems to me that Pope John Paul II’s making a public apology for the sins and failings of Catholics down through the centuries has as one of its goals to awaken in Catholics the need to make a daily examination of conscience.

Catholics have largely abandoned this practice. They’ve adopted a false theology that because they have good intentions, anything they might do is O.K., that they never do anything seriously wrong.

The fact that Catholics no longer frequent the sacrament of Confession is proof that they are not making any examination of conscience. If they did, they would go to Confession on a regular basis.

Pope John Paul II has written that “there is a crisis in the sacrament of Confession.” His public apology for the sins of the members of the Church will hopefully return many Catholics to going to Confession on a regular basis.

Bob Saverine
Stamford, Conn.

The religion of paganism

Editor: Thank you, thank you, for your editorial, “On losing control of the culture,” in the April 2000 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

You provided the unfortunate but plain truth and plainly stated it. We live in a pagan culture and our society is, contrary to the conventional wisdom, quite religious—it is the religion of paganism.

Catholics—what seems to be a good part of the hierarchy and perhaps a statistical majority of the “faithful”—have lost their faithfulness (if not their faith), and by accommodating to the prevailing culture (which stands literally for nothing) we embrace that nothingness, rendering us irrelevant and not a little absurd.

It is only by standing tall and determined for the rich tradition and deposit of faith that is Catholicism that this terrible stumble can be righted. The prevailing culture may then continue to hate us (that’s what prevailing cultures are supposed to do), but we will at least stand for something and demonstrate our faithfulness in our proclamation of it. Better to be despised by the pagans for what we, as Catholics, truly are than be considered—as we are now—petty, irrelevant, indecisive, disunited and without the courage to state clearly what we believe and, therefore, how we shall act. And by acting we might in fact make a difference!

The Holy Spirit will not fail his Catholic Church; but we may be in danger of failing the Spirit. Editorials such as yours and publications such as HPR contribute to a remedy, but what and when that remedy may be . . . truly, only God knows. Prayer and the Mass can help so much. If only one can be so fortunate to find a liturgy that doesn’t insult rather than edify. I’m oh so tired (and angry) of Masses that celebrate only the “presider” and the congregation, that indulge in super-saturated sap and the steady stream of “it’s nice to be nice” homilies. All-in-all, just as inspirational as the desiccated potted plants that seem so de rigeur flanking the altars in our all too with-it parish churches.

Yes, we’re “with-it” and that “it” is toxic.

Ronald S. Lehman
Chicago, Ill.

Why attack Pope Pius XII?

Editor: A great debt of gratitude is owed to Sister Margherita Marchione for her valiant defense of Pope Pius XII, as manifested in her April article “The Nun Versus the Spin Master.” I have acquired videos of her two-hour EWTN presentation on the “Abundant Life” series. May I express my “musings” on this subject.

A few years ago a nun who attended a conference on Polish-Jewish relations told me of a question asked of a participating Jewish historian: Why is it that in discussions about the Shoah/Holocaust, Germany is hardly ever mentioned anymore? His answer was that Germany has become a great financial benefactor to Israel.

If that be true, then someone else has to be targeted for the anger over that genocidal crime.

But why a Pope? Could it be that this “papal bashing” is actually a subconscious reaction against God who allowed that suffering? And thus equating papal “silence” with God’s “silence” during the time of that affliction? Is there a greater visible religious figure, representing God as it were, than the Pope? In other words, is this attack on Pope Pius XII a type of unconscious psychological transferal (of anger) to a symbol (of God)?

Rev. Stanley Smolenski
Enfield, Conn.

The male in the Church

Editor: I read The Church Impotent on the recommendation of some men friends who are very strong in their faith. Unlike Fr. John-Peter Pham who reviewed the book in the April 2000 issue of HPR, I found the book to be surprisingly a quite easy read. No persistence was required. In fact, I read the book a second time right after I finished it and later I gave it a third reading. Certainly as a “non-initiate” “in the overworked field of ‘gender studies’” I did not find “both its prose and its argument . . . tortured.” I think that is because I am a masculine member of the laity.

Further, I find Fr. Pham’s question—“Why is Bernard of Clairvaux scored for his bridal mysticism, which is viewed as a medieval development, while Origen, whose influence on patristic thought was almost supreme, is barely mentioned and Gregory of Nyssa passed over in silence when both waxed eloquent on the bridal imagery of the Song of Songs?”—to be disingenuous. After all, Dr. Podles states: “Bridal mysticism has its patristic precedent in Origen, whose heterodoxy makes him a dubious authority. Probably for this reason, Bernard neglected to acknowledge the source of his ideas in Origen.” It is known that St. Jerome and others helped to secure the condemnation of heretical and radical teachings in Origen’s work by the pope. Anyone who reads history objectively and dispassionately must at least consider that Bernard of Clairvaux was not a radical Christian in a secular society but rather a Christian radical in a Christian society. Bernard also commanded and employed great political clout. Had he lived in the twentieth century rather than the twelfth Bernard might not be a saint.

It has often been observed in nature that when an imbalance occurs there is crisis. If an imbalance exists between male and female either the balance is restored or great aberrance becomes dominant prior to chaos. It is not so much that the Church has become feminine but rather the fact that the masculine has been barred from its rightful place in God’s order in his mystical body and now even the male gender is being murderously assaulted. That’s the way I see it and I recommend Dr. Podles book to every man who cares about the Church.

Edgar Wyatt Stephens
Montgomery, Ala.

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