Erich Wasmann, S.J.: Natural Species and Catholic Polyphyletic Evolution During the Modernist Crisis

journal of jesuit studies 7 (2020) 244-262 brill.com/jjs Erich Wasmann, S.J.: Natural Species and Catholic Polyphyletic Evolution during the Modernist Crisis James R. Hofmann Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research [email protected] Abstract During the first half of the twentieth century, “natural species” played a prominent role in Catholic efforts to accommodate evolutionary biology within the neo-Scholastic theology of the age. Particularly during the modernist crisis early in the century, the most influential figure in this development was the Jesuit entomologist and evolutionary theorist Erich Wasmann (1859–1931). The anti-modernist context in which Wasmann worked included two cases involving evolution that were decided by the Congregation of the Index while Franz Xaver Wernz (1842–1914), Wasmann’s future Jesuit superior general (1906–14), served as a consultor. I describe Wasmann’s introduction of the natural species concept against this background and analyze his decision to abide by Wernz’s warning with respect to human evolution. I then provide examples of how Wasmann’s reliance upon natural species and polyphyletic evolution was adopted in subsequent Catholic efforts to reach a synthesis of theology and evolutionary biology.1 Keywords Erich Wasmann – theistic evolution – modernism – polyphyletic evolution – natural species – Jesuit science 1 A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 2018 meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association where helpful commentary was provided by Peter Distel- zweig and Kenneth Kemp. © James R. Hofmann, 2020 | doi:10.1163/22141332-00702006 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing cc-by-nc-nd 4.0 license. Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 08:44:26AM via free access <UN> Natural Species and Catholic Polyphyletic Evolution 245 1 Franz Xaver Wernz, Anti-Modernism, and Human Evolution Erich Wasmann’s most prominent efforts to reconcile his scientific research with Catholic theology took place during the height of the “modernist crisis” in the first decade of the twentieth century. Historians have reached a broad consensus that modernism, as a label for a set of suspect theological attitudes and methodologies, was largely the creation of Pius X during his 1903–14 papacy. One of his fears was that an emphasis upon religious experience rather than codified doctrine would encourage an understanding of both Scripture and doctrine as historically situated and subject to variable interpretations. In 1909, the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a decree that proscribed calling into doubt “the literal, historical sense” of Genesis 1–3.2 Although the Vatican issued no doctrinal pronouncements on evolution as such, its conservative insistence upon traditional interpretations of Genesis discouraged discussion of evolutionary alternatives, especially involving human evolution. Wasmann’s publi- cations on this topic would be curtailed by his Jesuit superior general, Franz Xaver Wernz. Prior to serving as the twenty-fifth Jesuit superior general from 1906 to 1914, Wernz specialized in canon law and rose quickly within the Roman curia, closely supported by Pius X (r.1903–14). His association with the pope was in fact so close that there is some symbolism in the fact that he died mere hours prior to the death of the pope himself.3 Wernz taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome where he implemented Leo xiii’s (r.1978–1903) demand for an emphasis upon Thomistic theology. He also served as a consultor for the Congregation of the Index, a role that called for a careful reading of books de- nounced as either theologically rash or heretical and participation in discussions resulting in decisions forwarded to the pope. Wernz was a consultor for the cases of Dalmace Leroy (1828–1905) in 1895 and John Zahm (1851–1921) in 1898.4 In both instances the primary point at issue was human evolution from 2 Pontifical Biblical Commission, De charactere historico trium priorum capitum Geneseos, Concerning the Historical Nature of the First Three Chapters of Genesis (June 30, 1909). For the original Latin text: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_ documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19090630_genesi_lt.html or an English translation by E. F. Sutcliffe, S.J.: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm (accessed October 5, 2019). 3 Richard Puza, “Franz Xaver Wernz: Lehrer, Kanonist und Jesuitengeneral aus Rottweil,” The- ologische Quartalschrift 174, no. 1 (1994): 22–33. 4 Mariano Artigas, Thomas Glick, and Rafael Martínez, Negotiating Darwin: The Vatican Con- fronts Evolution 1877–1902 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), esp. 85–91 and 152–53. journal of jesuit studies 7 (2020) 244-262 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 08:44:26AM via free access <UN> 246 Hofmann non-human ancestors. In 1891, Leroy had published his L’Évolution restreinte aux espèces organique (Evolution restricted to organic species). The sole Jesuit cardinal participant in the congregation decision to condemn the book was Camillo Mazzella (1833–1900), who had resolutely rejected evolution in his 1877 neo-Scholastic textbook De Deo creante (On God the creator).5 Consultor Luigi Tripepi’s report on Leroy was very negative, especially on the issue of the origin of the human body. Tripepi relied heavily upon Mazzella’s textbook, in- cluding references to Aquinas’s teaching that animal reproduction does not yield new species. Secretary Cicognani wrote an additional memorandum and again emphasized the problematic issue of the descent of the human body from non-human ancestors, writing that “the evolutionist system is impudent and anti-Christian, particularly when applied to the body of man.”6 In Leroy’s subsequent retraction, human evolution was the only topic mentioned as un- acceptable to the Vatican authorities. Leroy had in fact never explicitly defended a detailed thesis on the evolutionary origins of the human body. He had proposed several hypothetical scenarios and suggested that the church had not offered a clear doctrinal state- ment that excluded them. The hypothesis he preferred was that evolutionary processes might produce a body that would only become a human body when conjoined with a human soul, the substantial form that rendered it truly human. On this account, evolution did not produce the first human body that awaited infusion of a soul. Rather, the first human body only existed as a com- posite of body and soul when soul was introduced by God into a “substrate” that was the result of evolution. However, because theological consensus pro- hibited two substantial forms coexisting in the same body, the substrate could not have an animal soul unless it was in some way subsequently replaced by a human soul. Leroy’s hypothetical discussion was frowned upon by members of the Congregation, and Wernz was a party to the decision to condemn. The 1898 John Zahm case came to a similar resolution, again with Wernz as one of the consultors. Criticism of Zahm’s 1896 Evolution and Dogma was particularly severe among Jesuits writing in their journal La Civiltà cattolica based in Rome. In his denunciation of Zahm’s book, Archbishop Otto Zardetti (1947– 1902) noted that in De Deo creante Mazzella had theologically refuted the position put forward by both Zahm and Leroy. Consultor Buonpensiere went much further and proposed an action more appropriate to the Holy Office, a condemnation of the assertion that “God did not make the body of Adam 5 John Ciani, “Cardinal Camillo Mazzella, S.J.,” in Varieties of Ultramontanism, ed. Jeffrey von Arx (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 103–17. 6 Artigas, Glick, and Martínez, Negotiating Darwin, 90–91. journal of jesuitDownloaded studies from 7 Brill.com09/29/2021(2020) 244-262 08:44:26AM via free access <UN> Natural Species and Catholic Polyphyletic Evolution 247 immediately from the mud of the earth, but out of the body of an anthropo- morphic brute, which had been prepared to be produced by the forces of natural evolution from lower matter.”7 Although Buonpensiere’s proposal was not adopted, it was included in the report discussed at the meeting where the decision was made to recommend prohibition of further publication of Zahm’s book. Because congregation deliberations were not made public, Xaver Wernz was one of a privileged few who fully understood how objections to human evolution predominated within the highest reaches of the Vatican curia. 2 Erich Wasmann: Natural Species and Polyphyletic Evolution One prerequisite for avoiding superficial discussions of theological tension with respect to science is to avoid reification of concepts or institutions into agents. Actual confrontations and negotiations take place between individu- als, not between abstractions or collectives such as religions, religious orders, ideologies, or scientific research programs. In this respect, the career of Erich Wasmann offers a pertinent case study. Although the idea that life evolved from a small set of primordial forms of unknown origin was not unusual during the nineteenth century, it was tightly circumscribed by influential members of the German scientific community such as Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919). Was- mann reacted by making a centerpiece of his synthesis of evolution and Ca- tholicism the idea that, although there are extensive lineages of evolutionary descent, these lineages began through divine production of an unknown

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