Bishop Hedley Represents a Position Tolerated and Even, It Would Seem, Much Encouraged

Part Two - Bishop Hedley 1

Part II bishop john cuthbert hedley, o.s.b. 1 (1837-1915)

Thus it is evident that science is to be entirely independent of faith, while on the other hand, and notwithstanding that they are supposed to be strangers to each other, faith is made subject to science. It is a question of effecting the conciliation of faith with science, but always by making the one subject to the other. First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must in fact be changed. In this way they pass to what is practically their principal doctrine, namely, evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject, under penalty of death -- dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even Faith itself. Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Pope St. Pius X. Paragraphs 18, 19, 26. 8 Sept 1907

Now consider whether the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators. St. Robert Bellarmine's Letter to Copernican Carmelite, Fr. Paolo Foscarini. 12 April 1615

Bishop Hedley represents a position tolerated and even, it would seem, much encouraged and adopted, by the Church from the earliest days of the 19th century, if not before. Written in 1871 for The Dublin Review, the essay “Evolution and Faith” deals directly with Darwinism, both in Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871). And even back then, Bishop Hedley approaches the subject of evolution in a spirit typical of Modernism. The first hint of such an approach is this: It has been too hastily assumed that the “evolution” theory is a smashing assault upon orthodoxy that is carrying terror and confusion into the ranks of all believers in Revelation. It is nothing of the kind. We have no doubt that some of its advocates devoutly intend it to be all this. But the truth is, that as long as the scientific men confine themselves to their science, and do not set it to prove more than it is adequate to prove, Revelation remains just where it was. (p. 3-4)

1 Evolution and Faith with other Essays by Bishop Hedley. Edited by a Monk of Ampleforth. With an Introduction by Dom Cuthbert Butler, Monk of Downside. London: Sheed and Ward, 1931. All page references are to this volume, unless otherwise indicated. Part Two - Bishop Hedley 2

Two points to notice here: 1) a ridiculing of those who catch a whiff of heresy and are rightfully alarmed; and 2) a recognition that there are boundaries to the physical sciences, boundaries of which, as the bishop goes on to demonstrate, Darwin had no idea. But why not? He had been a divinity student! But as bishop Hedley openly proclaims the purpose of his essay, he reveals what today we easily recognize as the spirit of Modernism: What we wish to settle just now is, how far it is allowable on the part of a Catholic to assent to his [Darwin’s] conclusions. (p. 10)

And again: The question, then, is how far is it allowable to a Catholic to deny special creations after the first creation, that is, creations on each of the Six Days and to deny the special formation of the body of Adam, or of Eve. (p. 12)

This is like the teenager who asks: How far can I go with kissing and petting before it becomes a mortal sin? And so Bishop Hedley is asking: How far can we progress in denial of the plain meaning of Scripture and the interpretation of the Fathers before we pass into formal heresy? That is the spirit of Modernism which by its gradual encroachments ends by completely obliterating the distinction between belief and unbelief, between orthodoxy and heresy. Having stated his purpose of pushing Truth as far as possible into danger zones without being fatally wounded, Bishop Hedley proceeds to admit that, “as Catholics, it is our duty” to meet such challenges to Faith as science brings into the open. He grants four points on which the evolution theory is “not without grave importance” for the Faith: 1) It seems to contradict the fact of the distinction of matter and spirit; because the theory is, that all faculties whatsoever, in man as in the lower animals, have been evolved from one or a few primordial forms. 2) It seems to deny the special and separate creation of the human soul, which is a point of Catholic Faith. 3) It appears to oppose the received opinion, that the living principles of the animal and vegetable kingdoms were likewise the result of distinct creative acts; 4) and that the bodies of the first human pair were miraculously formed by God. (p. 6)

Finally, Bishop Hedley laments that evolutionists have no adequate idea of the dogma of Creation, noting that Darwin himself "does not deny Creation.” And now Bishop Hedley enunciates what has become an axiom of modern Christian evolutionism: “That the theory of Evolution itself is not opposed to Creation, we need not stop to show.” (p. 6) This statement reveals only too clearly that Bishop Hedley is not thinking at all of Holy Scripture in its entirety much less of Genesis One. Of what then can he have been thinking? He continues: It is quite possible that it [evolution] may be opposed to the actual way in which Creation was brought about, as revealed in Holy Scripture... (p. 6)

So it is not the theory of evolution itself that is opposed to Creation, but only -- "it may be opposed to the actual way in which Creation was brought about, as revealed in Holy Scripture...” (p. 6) Part Two - Bishop Hedley 3

There is a separation here, in the Bishop’s mind, between "evolution itself" and the description of Creation as narrated in Genesis One. I cannot account for it but as everyone knows, it is typical of Christians today who believe in evolution and still read their Bibles. The sticking point is Genesis One, for it is not only possible but certain that evolution is opposed to the Reve1ation of Scripture. And so, the Modernist must somehow eliminate those Divinely revealed facts. And this is where Bishop Hedley confronts the Fathers of the Church. And here, too, he is most instructive. Before doing this, however, Bishop Hedley deals with the more philosophical points listed and admits that "we are forced, however unwillingly [why unwillingly???] to see that it [Darwinian evolution] contains certain points which no orthodox Christian can accept." And this point is that the human soul developed gradually from the powers or principles of animal life. Later on, Bishop Hedley gives some very striking explanations of the differences between animal instinct and human reason. But for now, he lays it down that there is definitely a difference in kind between animal “intelligence” and human reason, not just a difference in degree, as Darwin held. This truth of Faith places an insuperable obstacle to the acceptance of Darwinian evolution by a Catholic. “The special creation of the soul of Adam is a dogma of Catholic Faith.” (p. 9) He touches briefly here on the theory of generationism or traducianism which maintains that the human soul is transmitted by generation with the body, just as in animals. This belief Bishop Hedley says has never been formally condemned by a dogmatic decision but is opposed to the “ordinary magisterium” of the Church, and so is contrary to Faith. But according to Ott (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 100) Pope Benedict XII demanded the condemnation of the doctrine of generationism as a pre-requisite to the Union, from the Armenians in 134l; and Leo XIII condemned it in the teaching of Rosmini (D 533 and D 1910). And so, Bishop Hedley reiterates: The teaching of Faith is, therefore, clear with respect to man’s soul. But it is more difficult to say what must, or must not, be said with respect to the formation of the bodies of our first parents, and also with respect to the “creative periods” which are alleged to be revealed in the first chapter of Genesis. (p. 9)

And so, here in 187l, just as much later, in 1950, the evolution of the body is an open question, for Pope Pius XII, in Humani Generis, Paragraph 35, allowed this subject to be investigated by those competent to do so. And we know to what end that permission has led -- wholesale acceptance of evolution and the consequent dismissal of Genesis as myth. As to those “creative periods’ which Bishop Hedley is careful to point out are only “alleged” to be divinely revealed in the first chapter of Genesis, that is to say, in the revelation of the first Six Days of the world, they no longer constitute a point of contention by Hedley’s time. But I am grateful that he takes the time and space to consider them. Darwin, of course, had no such scruples. His view, as put forth by the Bishop, is simply this: 1) all organic nature is descended from one primordial form, 2) all animals have at most only four or five progenitors, and 3) man and apes are co-descendants of the one extinct form. Bishop Hedley’s concern is to settle just how far it is allowable for Catholics to accept these conclusions of Darwin. And here he turns to the Fathers of the Church. Much space is given to the thought of Saint Augustine and his uncertainty as to the true literal interpretation of “the mysterious record” of Genesis. “He speaks of the obscurity of the divine revelation, and of the possibility of arriving at different conclusions. ... he warns us that in taking up any particular line of interpretation we must be ready to abandon it if, in discussion, truth be found to be against it.” (p. ii) In short, Bishop Hedley places St. Augustine somewhat in the position of both a prophet and a patron of future Christian evolutionists, or, as he puts it, “of the future possibilities of science.” (p.11) Part Two - Bishop Hedley 4

We of the 21st century have a great advantage over both St. Augustine and Bishop Hedley, thanks to the massive amount, ever growing, of evidences -- philosophical, theological and empirical -- against evolution, not to mention the prominent evolutionists who have defected from the theory. We can, at this time, confidently assert that the theory has not a leg of any sort to stand on. Thus, history is vindicating the Fathers who accepted the Six Days as narrated in Genesis One. Yet, Bishop Hedley pushes hard for the position of St. Augustine against that of all the other Fathers, excepting perhaps Origen. He even makes bold to proclaim, in the absence of any magisterial decision, that any controversy over the Six Days has long ago been settled. He says: There is a controversy now over and done with, which has not been without its fruit in the interpretation of the Mosaic account of the creation. No one now doubts that it is perfectly allowable to hold that the "six days" mentioned in the Sacred Record need not, as far as faith is concerned, be interpreted to be six ordinary solar days of twenty-four hours each. (pp. 12- 13)

Bishop Hedley was writing before the decision of the Biblical Commission under Pope Pius X, on June 30th, 1909, which decreed: Whether in that designation and distinction of six days, with which the account of the first chapter of Genesis deals, the word dies (yom) can be assumed either in its proper sense as a natural day or in the improper sense of a certain space of time; and whether with regard to such a question there can be free disagreement among exegetes? In the affirmative. (B 2128)

Bishop Hedley did not die until 1915, and so we may hope he became aware of this decision which, while it allows for acceptance of day as “a certain space of time,” also grants that the word can be assumed in its proper sense without fear of heterodoxy. And indeed, as Bishop Hedley himself acknowledges, this is the interpretation of all the Fathers except St. Augustine and perhaps Origen. His explanation of the decree of the Council of Trent on this matter of the “consensus Patrum” is worth giving in its entirety: ... what is meant by the “unanimous consent of the Fathers,” as applied to the interpretation of Scripture. Every one knows the famous declaration of the Council of Trent and of the Creed of Pope Pius IV., which forbids us to interpret the written word of God, “nisi juxta unanimem consensum Patrum.” As to the “six days,” there can be no doubt that the large majority of the Fathers consider them to be six ordinary days. They are so “unanimous” that there really appears to be no Father of any name, except S. Augustine and perhaps Origen, who holds a different opinion. But, for all that, they are not sufficiently “unanimous” to bind us to interpret the “days” in their sense. Either then the single voice of a great Father like S. Augustine on the opposite side, as long as his opinion had not been formally condemned, was enough to make the question uncertain; or else (which at last is probably the true view) we must lay stress on the qualification actually expressed by the Council (Sess. LV), limiting its restriction to “res fidei et morum ad aedificationem doctrinae Christinae pertinentium.” (p.13)

This was Galileo’s great defense -- that the Council of Trent had limited the authority of the Fathers to things pertaining to faith and morals towards the building up of Christian doctrine. What seems to have been overlooked by all was the last phrase -- aedificationem doctrinae Christianae... For history has proven that the separation of science from Faith and the imposition of scientific theories upon the interpretation of Holy Scripture has done nothing to build up Faith and morals but on the contrary, has done nothing but contribute mightily to their destruction. And this was the great point that Pope St. Pius X made in Pascendi (Sept. 8, 1907: paragraphs 18, 19, 26; D 2O93-2O95) when describing the strategies of the Modernists he says that they first insist upon the mutual separation of science and faith, then declare that Part Two - Bishop Hedley 5

science in no way depends upon faith, and lastly, maintain that faith must be subject to science. Finally, with regards to Faith, the Modernists insist that if there be a living religion, it must be subject to change like everything else that lives, and “In this way they pass to what, is practically their principal doctrine, namely, evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject under penalty of death -- dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself.” And so it has come to pass in this time of the Great Apostasy of 2 Thessalonians. Bishop Hedley did not, of course, know that he was contributing to the progress of Apostasy. Let us hope and pray that he read and pondered the Encyclical of the great Pius X and realized that the evolution he was trying to defend in some way, as not against Faith, was in reality the essence of the poison of Modernism. Bishop Hedley goes on to discuss the “second creations” by which he means those acts of creation, distinction or formation which God performed on the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth days of Creation Week. He say’s: Now nothing most certainly has been defined in any Creed or document of the Church, with respect to the origin of species, or the question of second creations. At all events then it is well worthy of inquiry, whether the text of Genesis is so clearly and unanimously explained to mean second creations, that to reject that theory is to contravene the “unanimous consensus Patrum.”1

Bishop Hedley finds two great Patristic schools of interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis: 1) St. Augustine, and 2) St. Basil. The school of St. Basil includes St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Damascene, St. Gregory the Great, Ven. Bede and many others to which I may add St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ephrem the Syrian and St. Simeon the New Theologian (11th century).1 The Patristic view of St. Basil’ s school was defended in the 16th century by the Thomist Francesco Suarez, S.J., who applied Scholastic concepts to the work of the Six Days. And most significantly, Bishop Hedley admits that the immutability of created species is taken as simple evident fact by most ancient writers of every school, including, we must add, St. Augustine.2 However, I find the following attempt to elucidate the consensus Patrum to be inspired by a lack of respect for what the Church has always judged to be the very weighty authority of Her Fathers and Doctors in the Faith. The Bishop says: They set it down, and they undertake to find reasons for it, just as they set down that gold was generated by the sun. It is important to observe this, because there are two kinds of “unanimous consent of the Fathers” to be distinguished; one, when they materially agree -- that is, simply say the same thing; the other, when they use words expressing their opinion that such a sense is the sense in which alone a given passage can safely be taken. Bearing this in mind, it is not too much to say that nearly the whole of the interpretation above ascribed to the school of St. Basil is merely material agreement. (p. 17)

1 See this writer's From the Beginning, Vol. I, wherein the Six Days are discussed at length from the Summa of St. Thomas. It is concluded there that the majority of the Fathers did indeed accept the "second creations" as described in Genesis, as especially demonstrated by St. Robert Bellarmine in his Commentary on the Psalms, in the concluding section of From the Beginning. 1 See Fr. Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision (Platina CA, St. Herman Press, 2000), for the Patristic interpretation of the Six Days. Caution is indicated, however, because Fr. Seraphim, being Eastern Orthodox, is hostile to St. Thomas and Western Theology in general. 2 See "Defense of St. Augustine" in this writer's From the Beginning, Volume I. Part Two - Bishop Hedley 6

This is sophistical in the extreme, and for two reasons: 1) the Fathers never claim an infallible interpretation until after the decision of a Council or a pope, and nothing of the sort had ever been put forth on Genesis specifically until this last 20th century when the Biblical Commission issued its decrees, under Pope St. Pius X, on the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and on the interpretation of the word day in Genesis One. Therefore, it is sophistical, that is to say, deceitful, to claim that the agreement of the Fathers on the Six Days was “merely material agreement” as if it meant nothing. 2) Bishop Hedley’s unfair analogy with the generation of gold by the sun brings in the issue of so-called spontaneous generation (actually termed “equivocal generation” by the ancients). This was an opinion that the medievals inherited from the ancients of Greece and Rome. It has nothing to do with scriptural exegesis. The generation of lower forms of life from putrefaction and of gold by the sun has no basis in Scripture and the Fathers never claimed it did. And so, whether the Fathers were unanimous or not on this issue is irrelevant.1 But the Six Days and the work of God on each day is relevant and based in Scripture. Therefore, the consensus Patrum on the Six Days is most significant for the interpretation of scripture and for Faith. The following statement is at best debatable: The only point on which there is formal consent seems to be that God made all things (in some way or other) out of original nothing.

Bishop Hedley names this agreement with the statement of all the Creeds a “formal consent” by his own gratuitous wish to do so. If such a formal consent had been in existence or required, I am sure it would have been noticed by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa. But there is no hint of such. There is only the acknowledgment that creation ex nihilo is de fide, on the basis of the Creeds and the Councils that gave rise to their formulation. Bishop Hedley is reading back into the consensus of the Fathers a material-formal aspect that does not apply to them. Bishop Hedley continues: Now nothing most certainly has been defined in any Creed or document of the Church, with respect to the origin of species, or the question of second creations. At all events it is well worthy of inquiry whether the text of Genesis is so clearly and unanimously explained to mean second creations, that to reject that theory is to contravene the “unanimis consensus Patrum.” (p. 13-14)

It is true that at the time Bishop Hedley was writing (187l), the Church had made no declaration regarding Creation since that of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, the Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures of the Council of Trent in 1546, and the Decrees “Of God the Creator of All Things” and “Of Revelation” of Vatican Council I in 1870. I would think that a close study of any one and even more so, of all of these texts would make any Catholic, let alone a Bishop charged with the teaching of true doctrine to his flock -- tremble in his shoes to impose such a doctrine as that of evolution in any of its senses, upon the inspired Word of God. The Fourth Lateran Council had defined: The Father from no one, the Son from the Father only, and the Holy Spirit equally from both, without beginning, always, and without end; the Father generating, the Son being born, and the Holy Spirit proceeding; consubstantial and coequal and omnipotent and coeternal; one beginning of all, creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporeal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature

1 See this writer's lengthy discussion of "spontaneous generation" in From the Beginning, Vol. II. Part Two - Bishop Hedley 7

from nothing, spiritual, and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body. ... (D428)

If Bishop Hedley had wished to rest his entire case on St. Augustine, this dogmatic statement would have been the one to cite, for the word simul -- at once -- gives strong support to the position of St. Augustine. It does not, however, condemn the position of those Fathers who interpret the Creation narrative in its literal sense. Rather, one could see in the designation of “each creature, spiritual and corporal” along with the indefinite “beginning of time”, a certain latitude given for the literal sense. In any case, this statement rules out absolutely both the Neo-Platonic emanationism of the past and the evolutionism of the future. For if God created “each creature from nothing”, it is difficult to see how the origin of species could be from anything but this Creation out of nothing in the beginning of time. As for the “second creations’ of the Six Days, they, too, may be seen implied in the indefinite phrase “the beginning of time.” And so, in the light of this dogmatic statement of Lateran IV, I do not see how the Bishop can claim that nothing has been defined as to the origin of species or the second creations of the Six Days. For reasons known only to God and certainly according to His inscrutable Will and Providence, St. Augustine was and is the one and only obstacle to an acceptance by the Church of the Six Days of Creation. The Patristic interpretation is strongly traditional, being attested to by innumerable artistic representations from both East and West. But as Bishop Hedley affirms, even though the school of St. Basil could be proved to represent the mind of the Church on this subject, we cannot claim a true and complete unanimity of the Fathers because of St. Augustine. And in this way, St. Augustine becomes the Patron of evolutionists and the philosopher of this strange new faith. Next, Bishop Hedley discloses the real basis of that new faith which he opposes to the traditional Six Days -- modern geology, the new revelation! But, it may be asked, can it he true that S. Augustine actually admits that the earth, thus fecundated by Almighty power at its first creation, developed its organic life by degrees, and during long spaces of time? To this we answer that S. Augustine stops short just at this point. He certainly does not say so, and we believe that he had no conception of the existence of those long ages which modern geology has revealed. Yet just as certainly he does not deny it. There is one remarkable passage in which he almost seems to anticipate modern science. He asks himself what kind of thing these “seminal ratios” were. [De Genesi, Book 6: Chap. 14] ... (p. 20)

Bishop Hedley is at great pains to be fair to St. Augustine and at the same time to have him assert long ages of time for which the seminal causes to develop and mutate into other and higher forms. He excuses St. Augustine “because the idea of geological time did not occur, and could not have occurred to him.” (p. 20) Is not this treatment of St. Augustine vis a vis "modern geology" an admission by Bishop Hedley that Scripture must subordinate itself to the "discoveries" of science? And is this not Modernism pure and simple according to the definitions of that heresy given in Pascendi? So it seems to me. Would St. Augustine be pleased with this use of his work in defense of a new false world view that demands obeisance from the Word of God itself? I cannot believe it. And yet, God has allowed it that St. Augustine provide some sort of Patristic support for the evolutionary lie.1 And therefore, on this basis, Bishop Hedley formulates what he believes to be the Catholic position, though it is couched in negative terms:

1 The evidences against the geological time scale are so abundant that I am hard put to choose which reference to cite. See Gerard Keane. Creation Rediscovered, 2nd ed. TAN, 1999. This book has an excellent index. Part Two - Bishop Hedley 8

From this summary of the two chief schools of Patristic interpretation of Genesis, it seems clear enough, that, with respect to all organisms lower than man, Catholic faith does not prevent any one from holding the opinion that life, both vegetable and animal, was in the world, in germ, at its creation, and afterwards developed by regular process into all the various species now upon the earth. (p. 21)

We note and emphasize that Bishop Hedley stops short of the evolution of man, and indeed, as we shall see, he holds to the Scriptural account of the creation of both Adam and Eve. But the nineteenth century was in love with the idea of progress and so, after much controversy over the differences in kind and/or degree between man and beast, by 1950 Pope Pius XII was ready to allow scholars to investigate the evolution of man’s body, holding only to the immediate creation by God of the rational soul. What contradictions this involves theologians in is subject for another study. Bishop Hedley continues: We do not by any means say this is the true opinion. it is certain that hardly one scientific man holds it in its whole extent and Mr. Darwin himself does not pretend to have proved it. [Darwin died in l882] And we do not admit that its proof altogether depends on physical science; there are other considerations, both metaphysical and moral, to be weighed. But it seems to us to be free at least from any suspicion of dogmatic heterodoxy. (p. 21)

Such was the Catholic position in 187l and thus it remains but with vastly enlarged permissions, as we all know. Of the evolution of the human body, Bishop Hedley says he is inclined to think that it would be “at least rash and dangerous to deny that the body of Adam was formed immediately by God, and quasi- instantaneously, out of earth.” (p. 20) And yet, by 195O, Pope Pius XII did not think it rash and dangerous to deny this point of Divine Reve1ation, for if he had, he could never have granted permission to investigate it. But for all his admitted caution in the matter (see Paragraph 36 of Humani Generis), he opened the flood-gates to this pernicious error that engulfs the world today, along with the naturalism and materialism that both preceded it and accompanied it and guide the activities of the world today. In his Introduction to the book of essays by Bishop Hedley, Dom Cuthbert Butler, monk of Downside Abbey in England, writing around 1930, shows us the steps that were taken to arrive at the position of Pope Pius XII -- a position still held today (in 2000) by conservative Catholics. His history is worth quoting in full. First he sums up the Bishop’s position as it was presented in 1871: The position of Faith with regard to theories of Evolution appears to be this: It is not contrary to Faith to suppose that all living things, up to man exclusively, were evolved by natural law out of minute life-germs primarily created, or even out of inorganic matter. On the other hand, it is heretical to deny the separate and special creation of the human soul. To question the immediate and instantaneous (or quasi-instantaneous) formation by God of the bodies of Adam and Eve -- the former out of inorganic matter, the latter out of the rib of Adam -- is, at least, rash, and perhaps, proximate to heresy.

Let’s note, before proceeding, how much Bishop Hedley has given to evolution even at this early date of 1871: he has allowed for a continuous evolution by purely natural means of all living things except for man from life-germs or even from inorganic matter, thus erasing the essential difference, in the natural world, between living and non-living, or animate and inanimate being. This is a great concession to the science of chemistry and to the alchemica1 activities of Pasteur in this same 19th century. Part Two - Bishop Hedley 9

Now Dom Cuthbert Butler tells us how Bishop Hedley modified his views later under the influence of other Catholics who accepted all of the evolution theory, such as the American Holy Cross priest, Fr. John Zahm: Thirty years later, in the Dublin of l898, Dr. Hedley returned to the subject in a signed article, "Physical Science and Faith." While deploring the fact that the leading scientist exponents of Evolution were materialists and exploited the theory as a piece of materialistic and anti- theistic propaganda, he unfalteringly maintains his earlier positions: Evolution leaves it open to theists to insist, as they must insist, not only that the fact of creation implies motive tendencies in things if they are to develop, but that creative interference of a special nature has intervened, at least, in the instance of the rational soul, and also (as seems most probable) when animal life first appeared, and when the body of the first man was formed. Subject to these reservations, theists can reasonably, and without sacrifice of faith, adopt the theory of evolution... But the operation by which God gave the power to the non- living to produce the living may have been performed by Him once for all at the creation of things -- the Creator implanting in inorganic matter the potency of developing life under certain circumstances to be realized afterwards.

This latter supposition -- that God implanted in inorganic matter the potency or power of developing life under certain circumstances to be realized afterwards -- was the position of St. George Mivart whose book, The Genesis of Species, 187l, was listed by Bishop Hedley as one of his sources for the original 1871 essay. But then Bishop Hedley repeats his caution about the soul of man: As regards the human soul, however, there is no liberty for a Christian. He must hold that each human soul is individually and immediately created by God.

Then Dom Cuthbert Butler continues his history: The article seems to go beyond the earlier one in recognition of the probable truth of the theory, theistically interpreted. It is almost a defence: it definitely repels the charges of materialism; of denial of Creation and Providence; and of banishing God from the government of the world. The Bishop says that the larger number of educated Catholics have accepted, in a general way, the hypothesis of evolution.

A key word here is “educated.” Since when was education a condition for discerning the truths of Faith or detecting errors that assault it? Probably since Rousseau and the atheistic philosophers of the false "Enlightenment". This notion that somehow the “educated Catholic” is a better guide in matters that touch the Faith than the Church and Tradition, is something new. Dom Cuthbert continues: The Bishop says that the larger number of educated Catholics have accepted, in a general way, the hypothesis of evolution. The Catholic student who carefully studies the subject will probably conclude that he would be shutting his eyes to scientific truth if he did not admit evolution as a useful and probable explanation and co-ordination of facts. As to the metaphysical deductions, made by unbelieving scientists, in the regions of theology and mental science, he can be a good evolutionist without giving up one iota of his faith or his Catholic philosophy.

This last sentence is highly suspect, and so it was noticed by the Vatican paper in Rome. Dom Cuthbert reports: To the Bishop's great chagrin this article was adversely criticized in the Civilta Cattolica, the Part Two - Bishop Hedley 10

organ of the Roman Jesuits. it had been based on books of a Rev. Dr. Zahm, a prominent American Catholic writer and lecturer, and the Bishop had passed a favourable criticism on these books. Zahm had laid down the lawfulness for Catholics of holding that the human body also was produced as part of the great process of organic evolution. But he, and also P. Leroy, Dominican theologian, who had broached the same idea, had been called on by the competent authority at Rome to retract the opinion and withdraw the books, though no public action was taken, as placing the books on the Index. In 1902, the Civilta, reverting to the episode, said: "The Holy See, for the best reasons, has not yet thought it prudent to condemn this theory of Zahm and Leroy by a public act." And to this day no public action has been taken in the matter.

What a pile of history is contained in this paragraph by Dom Cuthbert! I may not judge Pope Leo XIII but nothing forbids me to weep for his lack of vigilance! Dom Cuthbert continues: On this occasion Bishop Hedley recalls in a letter to Tablet that in 1871 he felt obliged to consider the idea of the evolution of man's body at least “rash". He goes on: “I am aware that views which may be at one time, theologically speaking, “rash,” need not always be rash, for the note of ‘rashness’ is given to those propositions which are either contrary to the common doctrine of theologians, or are put forward without any reasonable grounds.” Many opinions may be cited which have been through the whole gamut of theological censure. The outstanding instance is the Copernican or heliocentric theory of the solar system: it has passed through the phases of theological opinion, of heretical, erroneous, rash, tolerated, free general acceptance. Other instances are the Six Days of Creation and the geographical non-universality of the Deluge: and many others might be cited outside the sphere of interpretation of biblical texts.

The first point of Divine Revelation to go with the rise of modern science was the geocentric structure of the universe; then went almost along with it, the Six Days of Creation with their definition of “the beginning” as restricted to Six literal Days; it took the science of geology to demolish completely the historical fact of the universal Deluge and to bring about, by reason of its fictional long ages, the rise of the theory of evolution. [See this writer’s work, From the Beginning, for an attempt to trace in some detail this gradual abandonment of key events in history revealed to us in Scripture by the inerrant word of God.] Dom Cuthbert continues: In regard to the Tridentine unanimous consent of the Fathers,” the Bishop points out that the decree of the Council limits the restriction to “matters of faith and morals, pertaining to the building up (aedificatio) of Christian doctrine”; so that if it came to be realized that something in Holy Scripture is not really bound up with Christian doctrine, the interpretation of the Fathers need not he decisive.

The process of cutting Scripture up into parts that may be believed and those that need not be, into those that pertain to doctrine and those that do not, is here far advanced; whereas the Fathers of the Church considered every word of "the Divine Scriptures" to be inspired and therefore significant for us. Dom Cuthbert continues now to cite the Decree of the Biblical Commission under Pope St. Pius X: In June 1909 a decree of the Biblical Commission instanced, as among points in the first three chapters of Genesis touching the foundations of the Christian religion, where the literal historical sense may not be called in doubt, "the peculiar creation of man, and the formation of the first woman from the first man." Part Two - Bishop Hedley 11

However, this decree of the Biblical Commission did not deter, one whit, the push for acceptance of evolution in its totality, just as Fr. John Zahm and his present-day successor, Fr. Anthony Zirnmerman, have so desired. Dom Cuthbert outlines this push: Fr. E. Wasmann, S.J., is recognized as a recent leading Catholic authority on the subject of Evolution, and as a scientific biologist. He has in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, 1909, a short article, “Attitude of Catholics towards the Theory.” [This article is the same as the first part of the article “Evolution” in the 1909 American Catholic Encyclopedia.] His attitude is much the same as Bishop Hedley’s. On the question of the body of the First Man he speaks tentatively and guardedly; similarly in his highly competent scientific work, Modern Biology and the Theory of Evolution, translated, 1910. But the principal work on the subject in English is Darwinism and Catholic Thought, by Canon Dorlodot of Louvain, translated by Rev. E. Messenger (Burns, Oates, and Washbourne: 1922). The author was not only a good theologian and scholastic philosopher, but also a highly competent scientist in the domain of geology. His book may be recommended to any Catholic interested in the question, as a serious and sober learned contribution. Among other things he shows that St. Gregory of Nyssa seems to have forestalled St. Augustine’s idea of instantaneous creation and the seminal ratios. He accepts evolution, subject to the reservation, imposed he believes by science, and made also by Darwin, that the first living organisms were due to some special act of God. This volume deals only with the evolution of organic nature exclusive of man; the formation of the human body was to have been dealt with in a second volume. The second volume never appeared: not, as is sometimes supposed, that there was any trouble over the “imprimatur”; but because it never was written owing to the author’s death.

How anxious were Catholics then and now to accommodate every outrageous attack on Divine Revelation and to put forward scientific competence as the primary quality for discerning truth from error, or rather, for seeing how far the scientific views can be allowed into Catholic thought without danger of rebuke from Rome. But alas, Rome was growing more and more of the same conciliatory, accommodating temper. And in the same year that Bishop Hedley’s essays were published in England by Sheed and Ward (1931), Fr. Ernest C. Messenger published his Evolution and Theology: The Problem of Man's Origin (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., "Publishers to the Holy See” 1931). In this book Fr, Messenger concentrates upon finding, by hook or by crook, in the Fathers of the Church and in the Scholastics, some justification for a thorough-going evolution. This book met with so much adverse criticism that Messenger was forced to reply with Theology and Evolution. But all that is matter for another study. Unfortunately, Fr. Messenger's critics never received a fair hearing and evolution has won the favor of the establishment, as we know. Dom Cuthbert continues: The most recent treatment of the theological bearing of Evolution is to be found in the Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi Catholique, issued under the editorship of the Abbé A. d'Ales, professor at the Institut Catholique of Paris. In the last volume, 1922, is a long article “Transformisme,” by Pere de Sinéty, S.J. A5 this article is the work of a writer highly competent in his subject, and as perhaps the Dictionnaire is not easily accessible to many, it will be worth while to put on record the outstanding results of the investigation, as follows: Tramsformism does not touch apologetics or theology until it comes to the problem of the origin of the human species. There is general accord that, so long as it is confined to the explication of the genesis of the vegetable and animal species, the theory has nothing to say to dogma, and is wholly a matter of biology and the philosophy of nature. In regard to man, integral transformism has to be rejected -- i.e., the origin of the whole Part Two - Bishop Hedley 12

man, soul and mind no less than body, by transformism.

Allow me to interject here that there is something radically wrong with a “philosophy of nature” as referred to by Pere Sinéty, that would fail to see mankind as an integral part of nature, even as the ancient pagans, especially Aristotle, considered him in their philosophy of nature. Pere Sinéty’s theology, therefore, seems to effect a radical separation between man and all of nature, including the natural law written in his heart, as well as a radical separation of theology from the physical sciences, and of Faith from reason. Such a schizophrenic situation could not long endure, it being against the nature of man, and therefore, since the truth of these relations as given us in Divine Revelation, that is, in Holy Scripture, has now been rejected, really in its totality, by Modernist “Catholic’ man, there is only one avenue left to pursue for the unity that is most urgently sought, and that is in the false philosophy of Evolutionism. And that is where we are today. Dom Cuthbert continues with his quotation from Pere Sinéty: We have to enquire if it be permissible to a Catholic to hold that the first human organisms were born by the way of natural and spontaneous filiation from an animal stock? He ranges himself to the position that probably it is not; but in view of the fact that during nearly seventy years the Holy See has abstained from any public condemnation, neither will he attach any theological qualification to the notion. He says, however: If any one should find it more satisfying for the scientific mind to think that the Creator, in order to constitute the body of the first man, utilized matter already organized, and that He more or less profoundly transformed this organism, by the very infusion of a spiritual soul, we do not see that this could be objected to from the theological point of view. The church has never pronounced, either directly or indirectly, on the state of the matter which, according to the text of Genesis, served for the constitution of the human body.

Is it too much of an imaginative impulse to hear in these last passages, a rather desperate complaint that “during nearly seventy years the Holy See has abstained from any public condemnation” and a feeling of being left to one’s own resources, without the necessary guidance, since “the Church has never pronounced, either directly or indirectly, on the state of the matter” -- that slime or dust from which God formed the body of Adam! I find it so. Dom Cuthbert completes his quotations from Pere Sinéty: Pere Sinéty observes: One would be at the antipodes of the truth were one to maintain that the fundamental fact of transformism (evolution) is not admitted today by the immense majority of biologists. Their actual divergences of view on the manner of evolution and on the causes that explain it, should not make us conclude, from the check to certain evolutionist theories, that there is a general crisis in transformism.

Dom Cuthbert concludes: This is a timely warning, because with biologists, “Darwinism” signifies, not evolution itself, but Darwin’s particular theory of "natural selection" as the explanation how the process of organic evolution was carried out. But with the general public “Darwinism” means organic evolution, or transformism, and so when biologists criticize and reject “Darwinism,” as they now predominantly do, meaning “natural selection,” apologists and controversialists are apt to jump to the conclusion that they are criticizing and rejecting the whole theory of organic evolution, which is quite contrary to the fact. Part Two - Bishop Hedley 13

The distinction that Dom Cuthbert makes here between "Darwinism" and “evolution itself” is well worth noting. It is at once a clarification and a confusion. Fr. Stanley Jaki, in his many books, soundly refutes Darwinism but holds for a theory of evolution itself. On the other hand, Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionism was definitely not Darwinian, and yet, while his work has been condemned both by his Jesuit Superiors and by the Holy See in the Monitum of John XXIII in 1962, these public actions have never been enforced, and today we have Pope John Paul II proclaiming, at a general audience in 1986, that "According to the hypothesis mentioned [the theory of natural evolution] it is possible that the human body, following the order impressed by the Creator on the energies of life, could have been gradually prepared in the forms of antecedent living beings." (Quoted by George Sim Johnston in his book, Did Darwin Get It Right? OSV Press, 1998, pp. 117-118) As far back as 1925, Fr. Barry O'Toole, a competent scientist and theologian, proclaimed that the Canon Dorlodot (in 1923) “deserves credit for having shown conclusively that there is absolutely nothing in the Scriptures, or in Patristic tradition, or in Catholic theology, or in the philosophy of the Schools, which conflicts with our acceptance of organic evolution as an hypothesis explanatory of certain biological facts.” (The Case Against Evolution. New York: Macmillan, 1925, p. 31) Some ambiguity is introduced, and perhaps a form of escape for Fr. O'Toole, in the qualification of "organic evolution as an hypothesis". And yet, how can it be, that even as an hypothesis, the “facts” it claims to have beneath its eyes, contain nothing that is contrary to the Scriptures, Patristic tradition, or Catholic theology, or the philosophy of the Schools? The only way this could be so would be to reduce all of Scripture, Tradition and Catholic Philosophy to meaninglessness! And really, is not that what must be done in order to accept the theory of evolution in any of its forms? At present we can list these forms of evolutionism as at least four: Lamarckian, Darwinian, Teilhardian, and Mivartian, which latter is a kind of punctuated equilibria, with forms arising suddenly when the right environmental conditions are present. I, for one, do not see any real difference between the Lamarckian and the Darwinian, because if adaptation is not a form of natural selection, I don’t know what else could be. Teilhardian evolutionism is a pseudo-mysticism, and the Mivartian evolution is an extreme form of extrapolation from the Great Chain of Being into the temporal order.

Conclusion Once the Church yielded Her Guardianship of Divine Revelation to the "discoveries" of science in Her recognition of Copernican heliocentrism leading to Einsteinian a-centrism and to the billions of years of geological time, She no longer had the power to uphold the Tradition of the Fathers in their interpretations of the Six Days and the universal Deluge. And thus She became a prey to the evolutionism we find in the philosophy of Pope John Paul II. The progress of Error is so plain here, as plain as large footprints in the snow. But the direction and final destination of the path is hidden from most beneath an optimistically interpreted progress of civilization and culture. The wounds suffered by the Church in Her Teaching, in Her Tradition, in Her Guardianship of Truth, are so many that now She resembles Her Crucified Spouse. It is the Mystery of Iniquity hailed by the world as the triumph of human dignity, solidarity and democracy, even while wars rage everywhere and divine supernatural Faith is reduced to a pagan Naturalism wherein any God will do as long as technological Man advances. The most typical signature of Satan is to convince people that error and sin are truth and goodness. We see it in the push to normalize the deviant behavior of homosexuals, in the attempt to convince people that they have a right to choose as if there were no such thing as right and wrong or a moral law and order created by God with the universe and man. We see it in the exaltation of democracy, the only form of government that Part Two - Bishop Hedley 14

is acceptable and that men are capable of governing themselves without any Creed or higher order to guide them. And we see it in the attempt to convince people that there is nothing in the theory of evolution as such that is contrary to Catholic Faith and doctrine based on Holy Scripture and guarded by the Church, Her constant teaching and Tradition. Such a lie is worthy of Lucifer-Satan and can only succeed where the truths of Divine Revelation have been lost. But only for a while. For we are founded on a Rock -- a Big Rock. And the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against It. (Matt. 16:18)

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