Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Pax Christi!
Some time ago, one of our advisory council members sent me an advertisement from the Catholic “dating service,” Catholic Match. If you are a long-time reader of this newsletter, you know that we believe that if we had faith in the true doctrine of creation—for reasons explained below—we would close down all of the dating services and let God be our heavenly Matchmaker. Nevertheless, I am sharing this advertisement again because it is a sign that the tide is turning against evolution within the Catholic community. I say this because when the Kolbe Center was founded almost twenty-five years ago no website like Catholic Match would have used a man with a Darwin t-shirt as an icon for someone who “doesn’t share your faith.” That might have been considered suitable for an evangelical Christian dating service, but not for a Catholic one! This advertisement—as far from the ideal of Catholic courtship as it is—is a fruit of your prayer and sacrifices. It is a sign that evolution is no longer considered a belief that any savvy young adult Catholic can reconcile with his faith.
On a recent Kolbe seminar tour that took me around the Midwest and into southern Canada, I had an amazing encounter that demonstrated the importance of sowing seeds of truth even when they seem to fall on rocky ground. I had arranged to stop in a Midwestern town that had a Traditional Latin Mass early on a Saturday morning that would allow me to get to my next venue on time. After the Holy Mass a young man came up to me holding a toddler and identified himself as someone that I had not seen for about ten years. He had attended one of the conservative Catholic colleges that teaches theistic evolution, and he told me that he had “pooh-poohed” the work of the Kolbe Center—as I could well remember that he had done! He assured me that he was now “300% convinced” of the truth of the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation, and I could see that he was also very happily married, with a beautiful family. On the very same trip, I met a man who now has a master’s degree in Theology who told me that his mother had dragged him to a Kolbe seminar twenty years ago when he was a convinced theistic evolutionist. After attending the seminar, he began to question what he had been taught about evolution, and after making his own investigation, he, too, became convinced of the truth of the traditional reading of Genesis. I mention these experiences to encourage you to persevere in sowing seeds of truth, even if they seem to land on rocky soil. Ten or twenty years from now you may well be shocked to discover how fruitful your efforts have been.
Adam Was Created First—But Why?
Besides the cartoon shown above, another cartoon made the rounds a few years ago in response to the riots across the United States and around the world. It showed an iceberg with “riots” at the tip and “fatherless sons” written across the whole width of the iceberg. This insightful cartoon in its own way highlighted the catastrophic consequences of the widespread acceptance of the evolutionary myth of human origins and the abandonment of the true account of man’s origin in the sacred history of Genesis. I would like to spend the rest of this newsletter reflecting on the significance of the special creation of Adam and the creation of Eve from Adam’s side, as a reminder that these “facts” from the sacred history of Genesis hold the key to restoring sanctity and sanity to our homes and communities.
Adam was created first—to show that man was appointed by God to be the spiritual head of his wife and family. This is why God revealed the commandment not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to Adam and not to Eve. Eve had to learn of the commandment indirectly through her husband. The traditional teaching on the special creation of Adam underscores the fact that God has given men the responsibility to be the spiritual leaders of their wives and families, and of society in general. Theistic evolution denies that there is anything special about the origin of man that points to his having a unique role as a spiritual leader. It is no coincidence, then, that Catholic families and communities are being devastated by the spiritual apathy and abdication of leadership by Catholic men, particularly on the part of husbands and fathers of families.
The creation of Adam before Eve so that he could serve as a priest to his wife and children and to the whole human family is also the foundation of the Church’s doctrine that only men can serve as ordained priests. Nowadays, in the face of mounting demands for the ordination of women, the common defense of a male-only priest is that Our Lord Jesus Christ only chose men to be His Apostles. But this argument hardly sounds convincing to men and women who are convinced that evolution is a fact and that Our Lord was merely adapting Himself to the culture of His time. For them, this argument is easily refuted by observing that we have evolved into a different situation where women can vote, work outside the home and even be chancellors of Catholic dioceses; therefore, the male-only priesthood should be regarded as outdated. The only argument that truly establishes the divine ordinance of the male-only priesthood is the one that sees in the Creation of Adam as the first priest the permanent pattern of the priesthood, and this is how the Fathers and Doctors of the Church viewed the matter, even if they did not see the need to make this explicit in most cases, since, until recently, no one questioned it.
The Mystical Meaning of the Marital Union
The one-flesh union of man and woman is not something that came up from the animals, as theistic evolution would have it. It is a divine creation, reflecting the inner mystery of the Most Holy Trinity Itself. Within the Holy Trinity, God the Father eternally generates God the Son, the Eternal Logos, and the Love that proceeds from Them is the Holy Spirit. Thus, the creation of Eve from Adam’s side mirrored the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity; and, had Adam and Eve had a child before the Original Sin, that child would have been conceived and born immaculate, and the first human family on earth would have been a perfect finite reflection of the Most Holy Trinity. This is one reason why Jesus could compare the union between man and wife in Holy Marriage to His union with the Church, His Mystical Bride. In stark contrast, theistic evolution holds that two beasts mated and conceived Adam who was then infused with a human soul—a philosophical impossibility to begin with! According to this view, human sexuality comes up from the animals—when the reality, as we have seen, is that the union between man and woman is a unique reflection of the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity.
Finally, the traditional doctrine of the creation of Adam and Eve serves as a constant reminder that God is the Heavenly Matchmaker and that the best way to find one’s vocation and one’s spouse is to focus on doing God’s perfect Will in every moment of one’s life. Until the Original Sin, Adam had no desire but to live in perfect communion with God, allowing the Holy Spirit to animate his every, thought, word and action. Consequently, God was able to create for him the perfect spouse, even as he slept. Today, many Catholic young adults live in constant terror of not being able to find the right spouse and a huge industry of Catholic and other dating services has grown up to try to match compatible Catholics. Although some happy marriages have resulted from the use of these services, many relationships have ended in disaster.
In contrast, one of the holiest and most fruitful marriages on record, that of Louis and Zelie Martin, the parents of the Little Flower, was true to the original pattern established in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve before the Fall. Louis and Zelie wanted to serve God with all their hearts, and both sought to enter religious life. When entrance to religious life was denied to them, God brought them together. In fact, as Zelie walked over a bridge and saw Louis in a boat on the river below, Jesus spoke to Zelie and told her plainly that Louis was the man He had chosen for her to marry. If Catholics once again believed and proclaimed the traditional doctrine of the creation of Adam and Eve, many more of them would follow the example of Zelie and Louis, confident that the best way to find one’s vocation and one’s spouse, is to focus on the doing the perfect Will of God in every moment.
Please keep the Kolbe Center in your prayers.
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata in union with St. Joseph,
Hugh Owen
