How Pope Pius XI defended the history of Genesis, special creation of St. Adam
Before becoming Pope Pius XI, Fr. Achille Ratti wrote a theological work supporting Adam’s special creation – an argument he upheld throughout his life, countering growing scientific and theological shifts toward evolution.

Quote:Our Holy Father, Pope Pius XI, in private audiences, from time to time recalled with pleasure this work of his (“which cost him no little labor”), and reconfirmed his conclusions.[2]

Quote:Great theologians of the early centuries of the Christian era, like Saint Augustine, did not read Genesis as history. It’s only in the last hundred years, mostly in the United States, that you have people coming up with a radically different view.

Quote:What is to be held of the first origin of man as regards the body, according to faith and sound theology?

The answer is this: It is clear from divine revelation that the first parents, not only regarding the soul, but also regarding the body, were formed by God himself, not by simple concurrence, but by direct and immediate action, although not creative.

Quote:Ratti distinguishes the formation of the body as “not creative” in the strict sense that the body was not called into being out of nothing like the soul was, but rather was formed from the material of mud and the rib. St. Thomas Aquinas defines creation in the unequivocal sense as the original emanation of each thing into being from nothing:

Quote:“‘To create is to make something from nothing’… we must consider not only the emanation of a particular being from a particular agent, but also the emanation of all being from the universal cause, which is God; and this emanation we designate by the name of creation … it is impossible that any being should be presupposed before this emanation. For nothing is the same as no being. Therefore as the generation of a man is from the ‘not-being’ which is ‘not-man,’ so creation, which is the emanation of all being, is from the ‘not-being’ which is ‘nothing.’[3]

However, per Aquinas, the whole man, as a composite of both body and soul, can be said to have been created out of “not-man” in that immediate and simultaneous action, as he was brought from a state of non-being into being in all of his principles:

“Creation does not mean the building up of a composite thing from pre-existing principles; but it means that the ‘composite’ is created so that it is brought into being at the same time with all its principles … for creation is the production of the whole being, and not only matter.”[4]

Quote:In the first place, then, we must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: Whatever there is in the Word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative.[5]

Quote:Is the formation of the body from mud impossible to reconcile with purity of life or sound doctrine? Certainly not. Pope Leo XIII likewise cites “the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine – not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires…[6] Does reason or necessity compel us to believe that an all-powerful God could not create a body from mud? Certainly not! Therefore, we ought to take the words literally.

Quote:It remains to say a few things about the antiquity of human origin. Holy Scripture nowhere expressly presents a complete chronology which extends to the creation of Adam; but what it sparsely reports presents no little difficulty, especially if one considers the discrepancies between the Hebrew text and the Septuagint and Samaritan versions; but the Vulgate version follows the Hebrew text.

Even greater and far more numerous discrepancies occur among the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers. Cardinal Meignan counts one hundred and fifty different calculations, none of which can be called reprobate; in fact, Des Vignoles collected more than two hundred different indications of the time from Adam to Christ, the minimum of which he counts as 3,483 years, the maximum as 6,984. It is true that in all the aforesaid calculations, a common foundation was sought in the Holy Scriptures themselves. For, after certain minor difficulties, it was seen that the following numbers of years could be gathered from inspired books.

From Adam to Noah’s flood:

according to the Vulgate and Hebrew text… 1,656

according to the Samaritan text… … … … 1,306

according to the Septuagint… … … … … … 2,242

From Noah’s flood to Abraham’s birth:

according to the Vulgate… … … … …292 or 293

according to the Samaritan text… … … … … 942

according to the Septuagint… … … … … … 1,183

From Abraham to Christ’s birth:

with hardly a few decades of difference… 2,190

Having said this, it follows that neither Holy Scripture nor Tradition contains a chronology of the human race that is at least completely defined. Here again, it is certainly possible to follow any of the chronologies received here and there in the Church.

Quote:Though they posited various dates for Christ’s birth, all the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers who mentioned the subject taught a recent creation as a matter of faith in Scripture, in opposition to the old-earth mythologies of the pagans (not, as some have said, simply due to their ancient scientific conceptions). The Church teaches:

“In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy Scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the Fathers. [7]

Even modernist bible scholar M.J. Lagrange had to admit the substantial sensus fidelium on the young earth within the Church over the centuries, regardless of the differing proposed dates. Lagrange found himself arguing that the ancient Fathers had been right to interpret Genesis 1-11 as teaching a young chronology, because the text indeed does teach it, even though it is not true, and that God intentionally used their errant belief in the historicity Genesis 1-11 to bring them to spiritual truths, as they would not have otherwise been able to grasp them if he had explained them at that time in a manner fitting with what we now “know” through science.

This is heresy, because we are bound to hold that whatever Scripture teaches is inerrant, and that such inerrancy extends not just to spiritual truths but also to statements touching history and the natural world[8]. However, in defending this position Lagrange aptly exposed the ridiculous inconsistency of those “concordists” who try to defend one tenet of Scripture (i.e., the universal flood) by denying that another tenet (i.e., the young chronology) was ever upheld by the Church:

“Then came the turn of the philologists. It seemed to them that there would never have been time enough for the formation of languages had the Deluge swallowed up all mankind … but, in point of fact, the arguments of the scientists were only conclusive if biblical chronology were upheld…And so, when the universality of the Deluge was defended by this [concordist] school, they held that biblical chronology was non-existent. They went so far as to foster the delusion that Catholic opinion had never admitted a chronology, because it did not agree as to its limits: as though the differences of opinion, reached as the result of so much painful effort, did not suppose a common groundwork known to all.“[9] (emphasis added)

By the very admission of this preeminent modernist, to believe that the tradition of the Church on the biblical chronology was either non-existent, insubstantial, or due to mistaken exegesis, is delusional, but to accept an old universe is to believe that Scripture teaches falsehood. Therefore, the best option for a pious Catholic is to believe in the young universe – “young” only in relation to the uniformitarian extrapolations of naturalists, and not in relation to any objective chronology of the world.

Pope Pius XI refuted Darwinism 100 years ago, but his lessons have not been learned
In assessing natural selection, spontaneous generation, and the evolutionary mechanisms expounded by Charles Darwin, Pope Pius XI found they fail under scrutiny, highlighting gaps and debunking falsehoods created by its proponents to prop up the evolutionary theory.



Charles Darwin
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Quote:The theory of Transformism or Evolutionism conflicts with the expounded points of doctrine because, as we have said, it is produced to explain the origin of man. This theory, not unknown to the old materialists, was reawakened at the beginning of the present century by the Frenchman Lamarck (1741-1829), cultivated and embellished by the Englishman Darwin (1809-1881), and amplified by the German Häckel. But for brevity and clarity’s sake, some things must be distinguished, namely: the theory itself of the transformation of species; the reasons by which it is said to be supported; the means by which transformation has occurred; finally, the suppositions from which the whole theory proceeds.

The substance of the theory itself, as it is taken here, is reducible to the transformists’ claim that man, at least regarding the body, had his first and immediate origin not from a certain direct action of God, but from a lower animal through the successive and progressive transformation or evolution of species.

Quote:The first reason is anatomical-physiological, and it is based on the similarity between the human body and the bodies of animals (a unit of configuration and arrangement, commonly known as a floor unit). “Nor,” says Darwin, “is it right to believe that so many individuals of the largest of each natural class were created with such apparent, but deceptive, indications of the common filiation of all from one progenitor.” The transformists also combine anatomical similarities with physiological similarities. The second reason is embryogenic; for it is sought from the development of the human fetus (ontogeny), as it recapitulates in its different stages the longest epochs of transformation from species to species (phylogeny). This is that fundamental biogenetic law, thanks to which Häckel congratulates himself, as if he had laid a new foundation for Darwinism and discovered the true efficient causes on which the evolution of all individuals depends. Finally, the transformists draw a third reason from the presence of certain parts in the human body, which, when appearing completely useless and considered as remains or rudiments of organs that once existed, should be explainable only by admitting the derivation through the transformation of species.

But if one looks for means by the aid of which a transformation of this kind has occurred, the transformists assign more. Indeed, as Lamarck says, along with Häckel, living beings begin from brute matter by spontaneous or heterogeneous generation, and from this they try to explain the first beginning of life in nature. Darwin, however, admitting that he knows nothing about the first beginning of life, refrains from this point. Lamarck teaches that in order to explain the successive evolution, new organs, whose development and active power are always adequate for exercise or use, should be produced by means of the modification of adjuncts arising from new needs and corresponding efforts; but what has once been acquired in any organism is transmitted and preserved through generation; for life itself always tends toward the growth of living bodies.

Darwin did not reject the means of this kind of evolution, but added several more: namely, natural selection, the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest: also, sexual selection, combined with the laws of correlation, heredity, divergence, and permanence.

All of these, however, have been seen by some as insufficient, since they present the transformation of species as accomplished only gradually and under the influence of external agents. Retaining the origin of all species from a few primitive forms, these say that new species sometimes appeared suddenly and as if by leaps from the lower ones, and not without the influence of external agents, but mainly due to certain unknown changes inherent in the individuals of a species.

Finally, the suppositions of transformism, insofar as it is extended to man, are two, namely: the variability of species and the enormous, even indefinite antiquity of man; furthermore, it is clear to everyone that these two [suppositions of the] transformists are utterly wanting.

Now, it seems that these can be said of the expounded theory, namely: there is nothing to prove its reasons; the means are in part arbitrary, in part absurd, but altogether insufficient and inept; the suppositions are either gratuitous or false; finally, the whole assertion of the theory contradicts the certain principles of philosophy and facts discovered in the natural sciences themselves.

Therefore first, the reasons of the transformists prove nothing: The first reason proves nothing; for the similitude, whether anatomical or physiological, between man and brute, is not as great as the transformists say; and what this similitude really concerns is not scientifically explained through some original typical unity of shape, but both by the conformity of the two into one genus, and also by the different application of the same mechanical laws according to the requirements of diverse cases.

Quote:Nor is the embryogenic system more valid. In the first place it is gratuitously asserted that the evolution of the human embryo is a short repetition of the long evolution of the species, from which man was finally sprung.

Häckel, who had already arranged the genealogical tree of man (after his own method, of course), discovered so many gaps and contradictions that he was forced to resort to certain falsifications or innovations of embryonic development, which nature itself makes so frequently that indeed Ontogeny itself may be said to consist of a kind of Palingenesis and Cenogenesis (2).20

Next, it is asserted no less gratuitously, but rather completely falsely, that the human embryo undergoes true metamorphoses from one animal form to another, and that true identities prevail between its different successive forms and the final forms of the lower order of animals. In reality, what is being and what can only be affirmed is the gradual development of the embryo and certain successive analogies, which were not unknown to the old Aristotelians. Furthermore, the animal organism, which according to the present natural economy is not suddenly produced perfect, but gradually by concurring secondary causes, from the beginning only predominates the more general characters of animality, and is successively adorned with specific ones; this, being easily understood, suffices to explain the aforementioned similitudes and analogies. Rather, he who admits these true metamorphoses and identities supposes an indifference in the human germ toward the production of any animal; but this is completely at odds with continuous experience. Of course, there is no sufficient explanation of this experience, unless some principle of specific difference is posited in the germ itself.

Hence, if even the greatest embryogenic similarity is admitted, it can only be material and, so to speak, superficial.

Truly, such a similitude as the transformists boast is not to be admitted, as is clear from the most accurate experiments, with several done not many years ago (1876) by Th. Bischoff in the Münich Academy. It is also clear from the many forgeries which the most skilled men of natural science have discovered in Häckel’s painted tables.

Quote:Ratti is one of the earliest contemporaries of Haeckel to call out his fraudulent paintings and sketches, along with Carl Semper and Wilhelm His. Ratti also cites the German Jesuit philosopher Fr. Tilman Pesch, who wrote scholastic and interdisciplinary critiques of Haeckel. Many other contemporaries would follow suit. In 1911, Haeckel responded in a tirade mainly directed against his Catholic critics, writing:

“They charged me with willful deception and falsifications, because I schematized the pictures of the embryos. By ‘schematize’ I mean I omitted unessential adjuncts and strongly emphasized essential form relations. I also filled in deficiencies here and there by comparative synthesis.” [1]

Of course, Haeckel essentially admits in saying this that he exaggerated parts of the embryos to make similarities appear obvious where they would otherwise not have, added in features from other embryos where they were absent to give the impression of similitude, and erased certain features that he felt would weaken his argument; in short, he engaged in falsification. By “unessential,” “essential,” or “deficiencies,” he means only what is thus in terms of his own presupposed argument. In 1915, Jesuit biologist Fr. J. Assmuth published a comprehensive review of Haeckel’s distortions up to that point.[2]

The Catholic retaliation against Haeckel was not unprovoked. Haeckel, with Darwin’s permission[3], used Darwin’s theory as tool for anti-Catholic polemics in the context of the German Kulturkampf, a period where Catholics were persecuted by the state:

Quote:“We do indeed now enjoy the unusual pleasure of seeing ‘most Christian bishops’ and Jesuits exiled and imprisoned for their disobedience to the laws of the state … In this mighty ‘war of culture,’ … no better ally than Anthropogeny can, it seems to me, be brought to the assistance of struggling for truth.[4]”

“The history of evolution is the heavy artillery in the struggle for truth. Whole ranks of dualistic sophisms fall before the monistic philosophy, as before the chain shot of artillery, and the proud structure of the Roman hierarchy, that mighty stronghold of infallible dogmatism, falls like a house of cards. Whole libraries of church wisdom and false philosophy melt away as soon as they are seen in the light afforded by the history of evolution. The church militant itself furnishes the most striking evidences of this, for it never ceases to give the lie to the plain facts of human germ-history, condemning them as ‘diabolical inventions of materialism.’”[5]

Darwin remained a close friend of Haeckel and thought highly of Haeckel’s The Evolution of Man, considering it comparable to his own The Descent of Man.[6]

Pope Pius XI exposed the scientific and theological weakness of Darwin’s theory
Alongside a lack of scientific evidence for the evolutionary proposition of natural selection and ‘unknown internal causes’ supposedly driving transformations, Pope Pius XI shows the philosophical impossibility of Darwin’s theory.



Pope Pius XI
Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Quote:Given these conditions, what the transformists say about the unified animal type and about the universal common derivation on account of the uniformity of the embryonic structure can certainly, to say the least, be turned back against them.

Nor, in short, does the system prove anything from the rudiments [i.e. “vestigial organs”]. For, in the first place, Darwin contradicts and entangles himself. Indeed, the alleged reduction of the organs to a kind of rudiment is certainly a type of transformation; and the clear explanation of all transformations, according to Darwin is found in the theory of natural selection. But this kind of selection chooses only what is useful and is to be preserved; however, those rudimentary parts are said to be useless.

Hence Darwin, as if to excuse himself from such a weak explanation, reverts to non-use. He soon admits that even this medium is inept, and at last takes refuge in the supposition of one progenitor, who obtained these parts in a state of full development. But this is to base the argument on that very thing for which it had been invented to demonstrate. Secondly, the uselessness of the parts in question is falsely assumed. Indeed, in some cases, their usefulness is completely clear. And if their service is not always known, it is not therefore absolutely deniable; although there is certainly something useful in the fact that these parts correspond to the fundamental structure and harmony of the organism.

Nor, however, is the transformists’ argument helped in any way by such utilities; its very first foundation is false. For parts of this kind are only abusively called rudimentary. Why is it that, when the frontiers of both history and paleontology are widely explored, those parts are always found in the same state? You will say that in the lower animals they are found more developed. But this does not prove that in the human body there are only the remains or remnants of those same parts, but only that there are homologous parts, and that they are in that degree of perfection which befits the rest of the human organism.

Second, the means of transformism are in part absurd, in part arbitrary, but altogether insufficient. The means of spontaneous generation and effort due to necessity [i.e. struggle for existence] are absurd. For indeed the first utterly subverts the most certain idea of life itself, and posits an effect without any greater proportion to the cause, and, without being helped by the support of even a single fact, is perpetually contradicted by experience; especially after the observations made in recent times. Hence this kind of theory is rejected by the greatest naturalists themselves, although they admit on the other hand that no middle ground can be given between spontaneous generation and creation.

Nor is the other means any less absurd; for it is one thing for exercise to perfect the organs, and quite another for it to produce or completely transform them; which is almost the same as saying that the cause is produced from the effect. And why is it, ultimately, that no such transformation or production takes place? They assume a permanent law, but again, why is it that paleontology has revealed no trace of such transformation or production? And more about these below. But what is the benefit, what is the use of the organs during the very slow production or transformation?

The rest of the proposed means of the transformation of species, if not so manifestly absurd, must certainly be called arbitrary. These, in fact, the transformists reduce to one main principle which all the rest serve instrumentally, namely natural selection or election. But firstly, regarding this selection, the fundamental reasoning of Darwin himself is this: “If, as we see, artificial selection is possible in animals, what will not be accomplished by natural selection?”

Now, aside from the fact that this natural selection is not demonstrated, but is assumed, the modifications introduced by artificial selection certainly never affect the species itself.

The means of this selection belong either to external circumstances, or to the organism’s unknown and inner causes. But in neither hypothesis can they be admitted as means for the transformation of species. For external circumstances certainly pertain to the existential condition of living things; but the transformationists wrongly confuse the principles of condition and cause. Likewise, daily experience establishes that the influence of external agents never affects the species themselves. Hence, what reason suggests is confirmed, namely that the influence of such agents, as regards the final determination of the effect, is received in different organisms according to the manner of the recipient.

Now it is clear from the fact that they are called unknown that the internal causes of a specific transformation are arbitrarily set. Assuming that organisms have an intrinsic tendency to self-destruction is also an obstacle, however, unless it is falsely assumed that there is no substantial difference between different species.

All this being said, it is clear that all the aforementioned proposed means to the end of transformation must be considered completely insufficient: this Darwin himself acknowledged.

Third: The suppositions by which the whole theory of transformism is laid out are either gratuitous or false.

Gratuitous, to say the least, is the assertion of the transformists about the enormous, indeed indefinite antiquity of man. For the arguments they bring forward, whether from history, or from astronomy, or from geology, paleontology, and archaeology, together with theories about the progress of our species from a savage state to a more humane one, which the very guardians of antiquity admit, either prove nothing, or they even prove the opposite.

The second supposition concerning the variability of the species is not only gratuitous, but also manifestly false.

Indeed, although within the limits of each species we see almost innumerable varieties arise, the limits of the species themselves cannot always be defined ἐν ἀτόμῳ [literally “in an indivisible unit”], so to speak; yet each species always retains its own particular face, by which it is undoubtedly distinguished from the rest.

Additionally, there is the constant fact of fecundity between individuals of the same species, and infertility or hybridism between individuals of a different species. Also, there is a perpetual effort on the part of nature toward the purity of the type, so to speak, or to recover what has been lost through simple variations. Adding to these are all the facts mentioned below which overturn the very substance of the theory. Hence it is no wonder that all of the greatest cultivators of science, from the ancients to the most recent, except of course the transformists themselves, have held the stability of species to be the most certain truth of observation and experience.

But as regards the human species in particular, it is absolutely indubitable that it is and always has been one and the same, whatever the transformists may say. There are indeed differences both in color and in shape, chiefly in the head, and also in the tongue. But their conformity in substantial characteristics, whether physical or intellectual and moral, as well as the absence of hybridism, proves that all these things are contained within the limits of certain varieties of the same species. And those genetic variations which do exist are not difficult to explain from the primitive unity of the human family and its propagation throughout the world, without resorting to the transformation of species. This primitive unity and propagation is certainly evident from the histories and traditions of almost all peoples, from the comparative study of languages, and from the weakness of the objections against it.

Quote:Fourth: Finally, the whole assertion of transformism contradicts certain principles of philosophy and facts found in the natural sciences themselves.

There are three philosophical principles which transformism contradicts most.

The first is the principle of causality or efficient causes, which forbids positing an effect without a sufficient cause, under penalty of absurdity. And this is what the transformationists do; for they assign no cause, no means of transformation, which does not appear either arbitrary or absurd, as is clear from what has been said.

The second is the principle of final causes, or the teleological principle; which indeed, rightly understood, is absolutely irrefutable; nor are the Darwinists and transformationists able to overcome it, for they admit it in a universal way of speaking, but, having rejected the creative and intelligent cause, they cannot explain it in any way.

Finally, the third principle is the spirituality of the human soul and its essential difference from the soul of beasts; which can only absurdly be said to be derived through transformism, and the production of which must be explained solely through the immediate creative action of God. But our topic is the origin of man regarding the body.

And yet they do not commit themselves to this principle in the least, who, reserving the origin of the soul by creation, think that evolution can be admitted only of the human body. For by virtue of the principle of causality, the generative force, never going beyond using the vegetative and sensitive order, could not introduce into matter that ultimate disposition which is necessary for union, unless it acted as a kind of instrument of the rational soul.

But whatever the ultimate question of law may be, the question of fact must be considered resolved, both by those [facts] which consist of revelation and by those which demonstrate the intrinsic falsity of evolutionism.

Moreover, the facts which contradict the theories of the transformists can be recalled to a double order, as far as they are negative or positive, so to speak. Among the negative facts we list firstly that there is not even one example of the actual transformation of any species into another, which the leaders of the transformists themselves are forced to acknowledge reluctantly. For if varieties arise naturally or artificially day by day, they never pass beyond the limits of the species.

But if one wishes to have those monstrosities and deformities that occur here and there as evidence of evolutionism under the term “atavism,” and not as generally plain and morbid disorders of generation, this [argument] would descend into absurdity due to their nature and variety. To this end they resort to the law of permanence; what is this but the confession of the stability of species? They say that transformations can only be accomplished gradually and over long ages. But why is it that however long history and archeology extend themselves, we always see the same species represented without change? (1)47

Furthermore, not even geology and paleontology, in any or the remotest age of the world, have been able to reveal any trace of evolution, that is, intermediate forms between different species: in fact, the very hope of such a revelation disappeared for Darwin himself, although he admits that such forms should be very numerous according to his theory.

They try to solve the problem with sudden migrations or the destruction of fossil remains. But these gratuitous assertions, or rather falsehoods, are not demonstrated in a single case.

They appeal to a practical lack of knowledge. But this argument proves too much, as it can always be used against any hypothesis; on the contrary, there is no such general lack of knowledge, nor can the perfection of such knowledge ever consist in the destruction of preexisting acquired facts and unquestionable principles.

The contradiction increases if the facts are presented positively. In the first place there are some more general facts about the first successive appearance of living things. For contrary to what evolutionism would demand, it is evident that many forms abruptly appeared at the same time; and not the least in the sequence of organic perfection; nor was the appearance progressive, except in the highest divisions of organisms, but like a sudden leap.

Then there are specific facts, such as the progressive degradation and diminution of many forms, or their completely distinct existence in and of themselves, so to speak: the absolute extinction of many, or, on the contrary, their persistence in one and the same never-changing type, and many more others than can even be entered here.

Finally, there are some very technical facts which directly concern man himself, which show that he was never more akin to the beast than he is now. These include the bones and skulls of primitive men found in caves, which conform perfectly to the modern types. Here the lacustrine areas are noted, and the records of the three ages, that of stone, of brass, and of iron; which seem to have belonged to a fairly well-proportioned society of men.

After all that’s now been said, the famous Agassiz’s view, which presents the whole Darwinian theory not as a legitimate development from the data of modern science, but as a certain preconceived notion, will certainly seem justified.