Letters to the Editor: April 2023

The Body Is Not a Container for the Soul

In his “theology of the body,” rather than spiritualize the body, Pope St. John Paul II materializes our spirituality. This seems to be the opposite of what Jason M. Morgan does in his article “Subsidiarity of the Body” (Jan.-Feb.).

John Paul II moves us from the dualism of body and soul to the more unitive body/soul, a unity he would describe as a person. Morgan seems to write from a dualist perspective in which the soul is the seat of the person, and the body something subordinate. This is notably so in his line, “The human soul is God’s masterpiece, and the human body is the setting for the jewel.” This begs comparison with the often-used “man in the machine” analogy that assumes the soul is “man,” and the body simply a “machine” he inhabits in this life. This does not meet either a biblical or a phenomenological standard.

In the Book of Genesis, God does not create a beautiful soul and then design a body for it. He creates a body out of clay into which He breathes life. God creates the body not as a container for a soul but as man complete, a person made in the image of God. When we approach man’s life phenomenologically, we see that we experience our lives this way. As long as I am alive in this world, my “I am” refers to my living body. I “inhabit” it no more than we would say that any given animal inhabits its body. I do not have a soul that I can experience separately from my body. I can only know myself as the body I am, one that is alive and experiences and knows only through my senses, with a mind that is biologically enabled by my brain.

Without the body, we cannot know ourselves. Even our mystical experiences arrive as thoughts that are processed in our brains and translated as feelings within our body. To respect my body is simply to respect myself. To respect the bodies of those who have died is not to respect shells left behind but to respect the persons they were.

This does not deny transcendence. It is through our bodies, and the intelligence of our God-given brains, that we can suspect that we are greater than the sum of our parts, that we are more than the chemicals that comprise our body. With our bodies we can do something an animal cannot do: We can reach beyond what is material to what is transcendent. We can approach God as the person He created, a body enlivened with His life. God reveals Himself to us through our senses: through words we hear and read, and through experiences with other people who live His Word. Only when God becomes incarnate as Jesus Christ does what was vague become vivid. It is as a body — a fully human body, a fully human person — that God offers the final revelation of who He is. Only as human persons (as distinct from angelic and divine persons) comprised of body and soul can we even begin to understand that revelation.

It is as human persons that we learn to live as God wishes. With our senses and our intelligence, we can see that we are sacramental, that our existence breaks through the bounds of this material world into a world beyond. The body is not a subsidiary of the soul but a subsidiary of the person, as is the soul.

Pete Jermann

Murphy, North Carolina

JASON M. MORGAN REPLIES:

I thank Pete Jermann for his thoughtful response to my article. I agree with much of what he says, and I am grateful to him, especially where we appear to disagree, for the opportunity to think through my ideas more clearly in light of his intelligent critique.

Mr. Jermann raises an interesting point about mind-body dualism. This dualism is precisely what I wished to emphasize and overcome. Perhaps applying the lever at Jermann’s notes on the soul can help move us out of the dualism rut. He argues that “the body is not a subsidiary of the soul but a subsidiary of the person, as is the soul.” I would counter that the body is in the soul, which is why we who have bodies are persons.

A body is a thing, but it is not like any other thing in the universe. It is a thing that moves, lives, and subsides in a soul, a thing created by God (as Jermann reminds us) for a soul. This makes the body special, set apart. It is a dualistic argument insofar as the body is material, and the soul immaterial. But it is no longer a dualistic argument when, as Jermann says, we see our body as chosen by God for us, and as one of the media through which God works in, on, and through us in this embodied life. (For more on this topic, I direct readers to D.Q. McInerny’s wonderful 2016 volume, Philosophical Psychology.)

I do not think anything I have written conflicts with Jermann’s points about the Incarnation. To the contrary, Jermann makes a beautiful argument for the subsidiarity of the body when he writes, “Only when God becomes incarnate as Jesus Christ does what was vague become vivid. It is as a body — a fully human body, a fully human person — that God offers the final revelation of who He is. Only as human persons…comprised of body and soul can we even begin to understand that revelation.” I could not agree more.

Recall that Christ wept, bled, sweated, ate, drank, and slept. He walked, spoke, and breathed in and out. He grew tired. His feet were bathed. None of this means anything unless Christ’s body was Him, hypostatically, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us. The human body Christ had, and which we have, too, is a mystery in its own right, but only insofar as it is the soul’s. And it is the soul’s only insofar as God is the Author of all life, the life Jesus came to bring us, in abundance. At Holy Communion we take Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity. The blood and the body are not the divinity or the soul, but it is only because of the divinity and the soul that the body and the blood save us.

By “save us” I mean, in the context of the subsidiarity of the body, that Christ’s sacrifice, the murder of Him in the body and then the resurrection of that very body on the third day, saves us as persons, as bodies that will rise again in perfection, as Christ’s did, no longer subject to death (which touches the body but not the soul). Note that Christ first had to be born a man before He could save us mortals in our bodies. This dualism and its overcoming are what the subsidiarity of the body is all about.

As Pope St. John Paul II said, which I probably take more literally than he meant it, we are “an Easter people.” The body is along for the ride. Or, as Jermann put it, the mind is “biologically enabled” by the brain — this is just it, just what I want to say. Brains are good for nothing, really, unless they are the net and hive of the mind. The body is subsidiary. It has a purpose, and that purpose must be respected. And that purpose is subordinate to, but complementary of, our destiny as children of the Living God.

On that note (and putting aside the “phenomenological standard,” which Jermann leaves undefined), a final point: I do not think John Paul II was trying to “materialize our spirituality.” What I think he was doing was emphasizing the subsidiarity of the body. To wit, we are most certainly not ghosts in a machine. We are machines in ghosts. Our bodies are in our souls, and our bodies, therefore, demand reverence, even awe. Jermann says as much: “God creates the body not as a container for a soul but as man complete, a person made in the image of God.” Yes. This is the subsidiarity of the body, that thing that is unlike any other thing in that its “existence breaks through the bounds of this material world into a world beyond,” as Jermann says.

Our bodies will be in Heaven if we are saints. The rest of the universe will waste away, ultimately meaningless. That is the nature of the physical thing I wash, dress, and feed, and which someone, someday, will bury. This is the body, the thing that makes no sense at all unless it is I, and unless I am made in the image and likeness of God.

The Moment of Decision

In his short story “An Amazing Turn” (Jan.-Feb.), Alex Kudera beautifully captures the dilemma of a dispirited man confronted with an unexpected pregnancy in less-than-optimal circumstances with a less-than-perfectly matched partner. As the potential father drives his pregnant girlfriend to the clinic for the planned “procedure,” he experiences a moral crisis. He “couldn’t prove that his participation would be the most abhorrent act of his life, but he couldn’t think of anything else he’d done that was worse.” I couldn’t agree with him more. As a college biology student, my part-time job in a pathology lab included the receipt of a daily supply of the “products” of conception. I was young and ignorant and was appalled to learn several weeks into my job that these stacks of jars were from newly legal, local abortions. So many, every day, with little partially formed hands and feet floating in red tinted jars. Abortion would never be an option for me.

Years later, as a physical therapist, I spent long days caring for premature and high-risk infants in the intensive care unit. For over 35 years, I had a close-up view of the intense joy, grief, and abject fear of hundreds of new mothers and fathers as I helped them navigate their abrupt introduction to parenthood. The scenario in Kudera’s story rings true to me. Some parents confided to me that they debated not having their child for so many good reasons: some weren’t married; some had no money; some were addicted to drugs; some had no reliable partner. But they did not go through with the abortion, and they had the courage to confront their fears and let their child live. They are the warrior parents.

Nobody wins when a child is lost to abortion. The pregnant mother and father may be free to go on with their lives, but I find it hard to conceive that the decision does not weigh heavily on their hearts for the rest of their lives. Choosing to end the life of an unborn child is utterly tragic. Those burdened with guilt and regret need only to reach out for the gracious gift of faith in Christ’s complete forgiveness and the restoration of His true peace and grace. He is there for them always.

I don’t have the right to pass judgment on those parents who decide to go through with an abortion, which, they believe, will solve their immediate problems. They are the ones who will have to live with the consequences of their decision, but their child will not. Yet those who choose life may experience the newfound optimism of the father in “An Amazing Turn,” expressed in his hope that his choice to have a family may save him. Regardless of his future happiness, his decision to turn back surely saved the life of his child.

Dr. Susan E. McMahon

Fair Oaks, California

Kudos to Alex Kudera for “An Amazing Turn.” He peels back and exposes us to an exquisitely uncomfortable fork in the road. Most of us only come to a few big forks in life, and he invites us into that simple yet incredibly pressured, complex moment upon which a lived life hangs. This is how, I suspect, many of those “road less taken” decisions are actually made. Peeing, showering, walking down the hallway — those are the interstitial places where mystery, or, in Christian parlance, the Spirit, has a chance to seep into one’s consciousness. The father is moved. He invites his partner. She accepts. Road taken. The Fates remind us that it could go either way on any given day.

Anthony Delmedico

Raleigh, North Carolina

Alex Kudera’s story is at once honest, funny, sincere, and powerful. During a time when Roe v. Wade has fallen, but states have proceeded to outdo themselves in barbaric “protection” of the “right” to an abortion (including in my home state), Mr. Kudera’s story is a punch in the gut that reminds us what’s at stake: the life of an unborn person, and the lives of a mother and father.

I encourage everyone to read Kudera’s story alongside Brian Doyle’s powerful story, “Her Kid,” from his collection The Mighty Currawongs (2016). Spoiler alert: the kid doesn’t fair as well in Doyle’s story, and the pathos Doyle evokes is heartbreaking.

Jeffrey Wald

West Saint Paul, Minnesota

ALEX KUDERA REPLIES:

I appreciate each of these responses to “An Amazing Turn.” I’m grateful to have readers, and I’m far more grateful to be a father.

Calumnious Conclusions

Christopher Beiting’s review of Eric Sammons’s Deadly Indifference: How the Church Lost Her Mission, and How We Can Reclaim It (Jan.-Feb.) has some notable lacunae regarding the Church’s teaching on evangelization and salvation, resulting in some very misleading conclusions. Where is Beiting’s mention of Pope St. Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), Pope St. John Paul II’s Redemptoris Missio (1990), or Dominus Iesus by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2000)? Or, for that matter, the extraordinarily clear teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, based on Lumen Gentium:

“Outside the Church there is no salvation.”

How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. (no. 846)

If Sammons’s book has the same lacunae, it would be most unfortunate.

To say that the work of evangelization has been less than impressive in the past 50 years is certainly fair; to say that the Church from her highest levels has not attempted to give impetus to that essential work is calumnious.

Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas

Editor, The Catholic Response

Pine Beach, New Jersey

Christopher Beiting’s review of Deadly Indifference confirmed my suspicions of Bishop Robert Barron’s universalist ramblings. The possibility of Hell was a powerful factor in bringing me back to the Church after my absent middle years, and it still sometimes spurs me to get to Mass on Sunday. Salvation has no meaning if we are not saved from something.

The tenderness of Our Lord’s telling the woman caught in adultery that He does not judge her is wrought with a flash of steel: “Sin no more.” If we live it, we will tell it. In this relativist world, it could jolt people into thoughts they never considered before — and it might save their souls.

Lionel Hanaghan

Sheffield, South Yorkshire

United Kingdom

In his review of Deadly Indifference, Christopher Beiting seconds Eric Sammons’s call for more silence at Mass (both before and after, one would hope) and his critique of the Church’s soft-pedaling of hard Christian teachings. All to the good. But the principal concern of both Beiting and Sammons is that a monkey wrench has been thrown into the machinery of Catholic evangelization.

In dealing with this subject, Beiting should have made it clear that ignorance of religious truth does not lead automatically to damnation. He denies, for example, that there are “numerous paths” to Heaven. This is hard to accept since we know from Scripture that people in every nation who “fear God and do what is right” — by the natural law and the dictates of a God-given conscience — are “acceptable to him” (Acts 10:35). Beiting mentions en passant the Church’s teaching on “baptism of desire” and “invincible ignorance.” Yet his review seems to run counter to these age-old dogmas as it passes over numerous biblical passages affirming God’s fairness. Scripture makes it hard to believe that if a person has never heard of Christ or His Church, a God who is evenhanded is going to deny him a place in Heaven, provided he is seeking the truth with a sincere heart.

According to Sammons, virtue is more difficult for pagans than for Catholics. Again, I have reservations. Catholics are today’s “chosen people,” in Beiting’s opinion, graced, as they are, with the sacraments. This is true. But the Jews of Jesus’ time were specially graced as well — with the Law and the prophets — and how did they compare to their ungraced counterparts? The man whom Jesus described as having more faith than anyone in Israel was a Roman centurion (cf. Mt. 8:5-10). Of the ten lepers Jesus cured, only one returned to give thanks, and he was a Samaritan. The other nine — all members, presumably, of the chosen race — failed the test (cf. Lk. 17:11-19). Of the three passersby who noticed a wounded traveler lying prostrate on the road to Jericho, only one, again a Samaritan, behaved virtuously. The other two, both of them Israelites, shirked their duty (cf. Lk. 10:30-35). If salvation depends on upright living (and it most certainly does, see 1 Cor. 6:9-10), then a God who is fair will not favor some of His sons and daughters over others in the universal struggle for righteousness. And even if this were true — even if He would make it easier for some than for others — then less would be expected of the “others” by a Judge who is mercy and justice alike (cf. Sir. 5:6).

Beiting underscores Jesus’ claim to be the only way to salvation by virtue of His death at Calvary, and the emphasis is spot on. Every man, woman, and child who has ever reached Heaven owes his salvation to the Nazarene, whether or not he heard of Him while on Earth. Beiting is also on track when he rejects the idea that all religions are “equal.” It is just that Scripture’s insistence on God’s impartiality calls for a frank admission that missionary efforts are not needed to bring folks to Heaven. The “hound of Heaven” can do it on His own!

The reason we evangelize — and some risk their lives or livelihoods in so doing — is because Our Lord wants all people to come to the truth (cf. 1 Tim. 2:3-4; Mt. 28:19). He also wants us to help Him bring this about. He gives us a share in evangelization, just as He gives us a share in His redemptive suffering. When we “offer up” our own suffering, we make up for “what is lacking” (St. Paul’s language) in the suffering of Christ at Calvary (Col. 1:24). Does He need our suffering? No. What He accomplished on Good Friday opened the Gates of Heaven to all who deserve to be there, regardless of time or place. Likewise with evangelization. Does He need our witness? No. But He expects us to work by His side.

Beiting argues further that religious indifferentism is spawned by religious tolerance. Yes, if it is the wrong kind of tolerance, but indifferentism stems from many things, with moral corruption heading the list. For decades, the Western industrial world has been reeling from a surfeit of power and prosperity.

It is hard to understand why Beiting would hold that the Church “used to condemn ecumenism.” If ecumenism is an effort to spread religious truth that requires a willingness to listen when those of other persuasions tell us what they believe, I am not aware that the Church has ever been opposed. Too much emphasis on listening and not enough on sharing is bound to be mischievous. But, to my knowledge, there is nothing wrong with the practice itself.

Beiting slams Pope St. John Paul II for kissing the Koran during a visit by Muslim dignitaries to Rome. Yet, here again, there is another side to the coin. John Paul II told young people on World Youth Day in Denver in 1993 to hit the streets and knock on doors to proclaim the Good News. “This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel,” he told his audience. “It is time to preach it from the rooftops.” No pope in history journeyed as far as John Paul II did or witnessed as powerfully to the fullness of Catholic truth, including the truth about sexual morality. And there is more. The Catechism formulated on his watch goes so far as to call witness to the faith “necessary for salvation” (no. 1816).

It is true that, for quite some time now, we have heard cries of “triumphalism” — both within and outside the Church — every time a Catholic claims to have the fullness of truth. But isn’t this what manufacturers like Ford and General Motors do every day to advertise their products? Clearly, Beiting and Sammons have it right: We need to step up our religious salesmanship.

When all is said and done, we need to hear more, rather than less, about the rationale for our faith, more about its exceptional beauty, and there are signs that this is happening. Pope St. Paul VI reminded us that the Church “exists to evangelize,” and Steve Dawson, an American convert to the faith, founded St. Paul Street Evangelization in 2012 to furnish Catholics with what they need to bear witness in the public square. One might add, too, that when Dawson made his move, he was marching to the beat of the modern Church. Pope Francis has urged Catholics to take to the streets even if it leaves them “bruised, hurting, and dirty.” How “beautiful,” he observed, to see young people “joyfully bringing Jesus to every street, every town square, and every corner of the earth.”

Frederick W. Marks

Forest Hills, New York

CHRISTOPHER BEITING REPLIES:

The fact that contemporary Catholics could be shocked — shocked! — by an idea like extra ecclesiam nulla salus, which Catholics took as normative not even a century ago, would doubtless be considered by Eric Sammons as proof of his point.

With regard to Fr. Peter Stravinskas’s comments, it is worth reiterating that one of Sammons’s main themes is the idea of emphasis shift. The Church has not changed her teachings, but many of her members have changed the emphasis of those teachings. A couple paragraphs in the Catechism are not going to prevail if they are swamped by a flood of incorrect teaching.

I am well aware of Fr. Stravinskas’s yeoman efforts to present solid Catholic teaching over the years, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for his work. Yet, I have also known Catholic clergy who did mission work in non-Catholic countries who not only did no evangelization whatsoever but were militantly proud of that fact. And they were quite hostile to the suggestion that they should have been doing mission work!

My less-than-pleasant experiences with such folk made me receptive to what Sammons was trying to say in his book. How much did their work vitiate Fr. Stravinskas’s? And what does one make of a situation like this? At the very least, these people are clearly in the wrong line of work and should be doing something else — perhaps selling salt-free salt or lamps that can be concealed conveniently beneath bushels. But when one considers that from the 16th to the early 20th century the Catholic Church made more converts than all other Christian denominations combined, but now has missionaries who refuse to evangelize, it is not calumny to point out that the Church has lost her way and needs to get back to things that work.

With regard to Frederick W. Marks’s comments, I recommend a careful reading of Sammons’s actual words, as well as my own. For example, I did not “slam Pope St. John Paul II for kissing the Koran.” I did repeat Sammons’s characterization of John Paul II as a “Moderate Inclusivist” on the subject of salvation, which is not the same thing. For the record, I am critical of some of the things even an extraordinary figure like John Paul II did. Nobody is perfect, and, as they say, Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus (Even the wisest sometime err).

To Marks’s contention that “missionary efforts are not needed to bring folks to Heaven. The ‘hound of Heaven’ can do it on His own,” I respond with a simple “yes, but”: Yes, but what did Christ exhort us to do in the Gospels? Did He tell us, “I’ll take it from here,” or did He say, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”?

To Lionel Hanaghan I say simply, “Thank you for your honesty,” and for providing a good illustration of the great problem Christianity faces in the modern world. Ours is first and foremost a religion of salvation, and it is hard to convey that message to an audience of young, messianic, therapeutic deists who do not appear to believe that there is anything to be saved from, and who appear to believe that everyone goes to Heaven after death — except for the likes of Hitler, since he was, of course, literally Hitler.

Over the years, Catholics have spent so much time obsessing over the Third Secret of Fatima that we have ignored the First Secret of Fatima: the revelation that Hell is real and people go there. I find it interesting to contemplate the fact that this is the first thing Our Lady chose to tell the world through the children of Fatima. More than a century on, it is clear that we still need reminding on this point.

Religion by Muscle Memory

Kudos to Daniel Fitzpatrick for getting to the heart of the scandal of Catholic public figures who receive Holy Communion while being “resolved in [their] hearts to betray Him and violate His Church” (“The Time of Our Lives,” guest column, Dec.). My assumption is that those who present themselves as “devout Catholics” while “betraying” Jesus and “violating His Church” do not really know Jesus, do not have a deep, prayer-fed, and intimate relationship with Him. It is easy to disagree with and violate Jesus’ Church if receiving Communion is what “devout Catholics” do without reflection. However, if Jesus is present body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist, then to treat reception of Communion as part of the “punch your ticket” Sunday ritual is a betrayal similar to that of Judas.

I grew up in Jersey City in the 1940s and 1950s, when if someone asked where you were from, you would say, “I’m from Mt. Carmel” or from St. John’s or St. Aedan’s or Sacred Heart; the list of city parishes goes on. In those days, there were many truly devout Catholics who regularly attended parish missions, novenas, 40-hours devotions, and solemn high Masses. Mt. Carmel Church was so crowded that many folks attended Mass on the outer steps. It was not unusual for a parish to have four or five priests in residence.

I served as an altar boy until I was 17 years old. I attended an all-boys Jesuit high school staffed by many fine priests, men in formation, and dedicated laymen. By the time I graduated high school, however, I had begun my personal exodus from the Church, disillusioned by what I judged the hypocrisy of Sunday churchgoers who lived like everyone else in the world during the week. Until that time, I had been a “devout Catholic,” but, as it turned out, my Catholicism was quite shallow. I had been doing all the things I had been taught to do — almost out of a kind of muscle memory — rather than out of love for Jesus Christ.

At no time in my childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood did anyone ever speak to me about or encourage me to seek a personal relationship with Jesus. So, it was easy to drift into atheism and serious sin. However, when I was 36 years old, married with four children, several close Catholic friends began to speak to me about how they had come to a personal relationship with Jesus; they were on fire with love for Christ. I ultimately realized that what they were experiencing had always been a deep desire in my heart of hearts. I surrendered my life to Jesus and eagerly sought to be one with Him in the Eucharist. That has become the heart of my Catholic faith, the only faith in which Jesus gives Himself to us personally in tangible form.

My guess is that Catholic public officials and many other modern Catholics grew up mostly as “cultural Catholics.” In this type of Catholicism, the Church is simply another denomination, a good organization to which to belong that has various requirements expected of members. Without a genuine relationship with the Lord, you’ll have no qualms about supporting ideologies or worldly standards that “betray” Jesus and “violate His Church.” It is easy to present yourself as a “devout Catholic” while punching your ticket each Sunday and publicly fingering your rosary beads.

People who love Jesus and know that He is fully present in the Eucharist — the same Eucharist He instituted at the Last Supper, nourishing countless numbers of the humble faithful as well as great saints for the past two millennia — are those who know that the Catholic Church is the only Church in which the fullness of divinity, the Eucharist, dwells. To resolve in one’s heart “to betray Him and violate His Church” is to reveal a profound emptiness, ignorance of the truth, and ultimate contempt for Jesus.

Bob Filoramo

Warren, New Jersey

Exasperatingly Incomplete

In his review of The Miracle of Man: The Fine Tuning of Nature for Human Existence (Dec.), Terry Scambray provides a good summary, given the space constraints, of author Michael Denton’s work. I have always found Denton highly informative in the topics he covers but also exasperatingly incomplete.

Denton’s thesis that it seems as if nature knew man was coming is well supported, but he left so many critical questions unaddressed. He did not deal with any of the issues raised by Stephen Meyer in his first two books, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (2009), about the origin of biological information, and Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design (2013), dealing with the Cambrian explosion. He implies that he disagrees with atheist materialists Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, but they are addressing completely different issues. Denton is dealing with the natural laws that permit us to exist, but Dawkins, Gould, and Meyer are dealing with how we got from molecules to man. Surely, Denton realizes this.

For example, his discussion of mammalian ventilation and respiration is fascinating, but does he think mammals are descended from water-breathing aquatic creatures? If so, how did the transition from water breathing to air breathing take place through an unbroken series of functional intermediates, each more fit than its parent? Denton describes the flow-through ventilatory system of birds and contrasts it with the bellows-like system of mammals, but he ignores the questions of whether one is descended from the other and through what functional intermediates.

Though Denton makes passing reference to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, he does not address the question of whether they have any relevance to us today. Specifically, do they have anything to tell us about how we are to behave or what we are to believe? Why mention them if not to offer a view of their significance?

Despite my complaints, Denton is one of the best sources for anyone interested in evaluating Darwinian claims.

Preston R. Simpson, M.D.

Plano, Texas

Terry Scambray writes that Michael Denton claims to have “evidence” that the cosmos “looks to be a profoundly crafted place for life — specifically, human life — to exist and then to thrive and flourish,” and that some cosmologists adhere to the anthropic principle, meaning that “this world offers an irresistible invitation for life to come and stay awhile.”

But why couldn’t the universe also support complex, intelligent life other than humans? Even the Vatican has acknowledged that there may be other intelligent beings in the universe. In 2009 Fr. José Gabriel Funes, S.J., an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, said, “Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God.”

But Denton claims that humans are the highest pinnacle of life, and the entire universe, which has no end, was intended for the creation of humans on Earth. He says this when he refers to “the absolute centrality of mankind in the cosmic scheme.” The lack of hard evidence of other intelligent beings seems to be in Denton’s favor, though humans have explored only a minuscule part of the universe.

I believe it is possible that we are not the only children of God in the universe.

Rosalyn Becker

Fort Myers, Florida

TERRY SCAMBRAY REPLIES:

I thank Preston R. Simpson for his compliment as well as his questions.

I disagree with Dr. Simpson when he writes that Michael Denton does not deal with the explosion of new information in the Cambrian period or that he ignores so-called transitions between various types of lungs in animals. Denton does deal with these differences in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), pointing out the uniqueness of the flow through the lungs of birds as opposed to mammalian bellows-type lungs, the former having no precursor in nature. Furthermore, Denton makes clear that not only are there no Darwinian “intermediates” between birds and bees, but no one can even imagine what such intermediates would be like!

Yes, Simpson may feel dissatisfied that Denton does not devote himself to combing through the uniqueness of the Cambrian period as Stephen Meyer does, but Denton does discuss it as a part of his thesis that life is not as the Darwinists insist: one large, not necessarily happy family with clearly identified ancestors here and yore. Rather, Denton points out that life is full of “gaps” and “discontinuities,” for, as he puts it, “the founding of comparative anatomy and paleontology in the eighteenth century to the recent discoveries of molecular biology have only tended to emphasize the depth and profundity of the great divisions of nature.” So also with the Cambrian explosion, during which all forms of life, the “phyla,” appear as if they were “just planted there,” as even Richard Dawkins concedes.

Does Denton offer behavioral imperatives? The anthropic principle led Denton to see man’s central role in nature as a reflection of his role in the Judeo-Christian drama of redemption, which strongly implies that it would be wise for man to follow the code supporting this narrative, the Ten Commandments.

I thank Rosalyn Becker for her observation that we might not be alone in the universe. This is certainly possible, for, as she writes, “humans have explored only a minuscule part of the universe.” Is this fact, however, a repackaging of the Copernican principle, which attempts to show man’s insignificance in a vast, unknown universe? On the other hand, Denton et al. are proponents of “a just-right Goldilocks universe” in which life can exist only within an extremely narrow and finely tuned space.

Furthermore, as Becker concedes, “The lack of hard evidence of other intelligent beings seems to be in Denton’s favor.” All of which makes me skeptical that there is more life “out there” somewhere, though, of course, I do not foreclose that possibility.

More Ups & Downs Than a Yo-Yo

James K. Hanna’s article “The Curious Case of Bonaventure Broderick” (Jan.-Feb.), about the publicly disgraced bishop who was lost to the Church for 34 years because of personality clashes, turf battles, and a mistake in orders, was amazing. It took the esteemed Francis Cardinal Spellman, a man of considerable national influence in religious and political matters, to seek out Bishop Broderick at a gas station he ran in a small town and honorably re-establish him in the Church.

The lessons we can learn include a resolve to be patient and an exhortation to be humble.

Daniel J. Brabender Jr.

Erie, Pennsylvania

I read James K. Hanna’s thoroughly engaging account of Bishop Broderick’s life of ecclesiastical intrigue with keen interest. Hanna has provided a succinct summary of the events in Broderick’s complicated life and complex fortune, revealing his rise, fall, and resurrection as it played out in Rome, Cuba, and New York. His article gives those of us less familiar with ecclesiastical politics valuable insight into how God’s supernatural grace can work despite the shadowy vicissitudes of our all-too-human Church.

Rev. Richard A. Infante

Senior Parochial Vicar, St. Paul of the Cross Parish

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Thank you for publishing James K. Hanna’s profile of Bishop Bonaventure Broderick. His story has been told before, but too often it’s been embellished to hold the man up as a curiosity.

It seems to me that Broderick is an exemplar. He suffered injustice at the hands of men he was bound by promises to obey. He lived the full nightmare of a clericalist culture, but he kept his dignity and integrity. He remained obedient, showed no bitterness, and caused no scandal. Instead, he went out and made a living. He engaged actively in his local community, contributing a column to the local newspaper and even calling out corrupt politicians — and he did all this without exploiting the authority of his office.

The injustice went on for decades. Broderick bore it without complaint and quietly pursued a remedy. He was vindicated only near the end of his life.

Today, His Excellency would face the temptation to trade his dignity for a YouTube channel and GoFundMe page, where he could sustain a pity party for life. There he might receive adulation, but he would never be the hero he actually was.

Mike Aquilina

Bridgeville, Pennsylvania

I read with great avidity James K. Hanna’s biographical sketch of Bonaventure Broderick, whose life was so chock full of accomplishments and accusation, drama and distinction that it is incredible that he is not better known than he is. As the president of the Millbrook Historical Society, I was particularly interested in his years in Dutchess County running a gas station. I’ve driven by that location so many times over the years, but now each time I do, I contemplate the remarkably vicissitudinous life of a man who had more ups and downs than a yo-yo.

Mr. Hanna is returning to Millbrook in April — he did research last summer in our archives — to present a lecture on Bishop Broderick. If any of your readers are eager to learn more about Broderick’s life — and how could they not be? — I encourage them to seek out the recording of Hanna’s talk later this spring on our website.

Thank you to Hanna for bringing a forgotten chapter in the history of the Church in America back to life.

Robert McHugh

Millbrook, New York

Ed. Note: James K. Hanna will deliver his talk on April 20 at St. Joseph’s Church, 15 North Ave., Millbrook, NY 12545. Those who are unable to attend in person may access his talk once it is uploaded to MillbrookHistoricalSociety.org or to the society’s YouTube channel @MillbrookHistoricalSociety6220.

JAMES K. HANNA REPLIES:

I appreciate the responses to my article. Most gratifying is the consensus that Bonaventure Broderick’s life offers lessons for us today. It occurs to me that the letters appropriately arrived during Lent, as the bishop suffered his own long Lenten season before his vocation was resurrected by Francis Spellman.

Lent affords us a time to reflect on the virtues, and Daniel J. Brabender Jr. reminds us of the import of both patience and humility to the bishop and to us. Fr. Richard A. Infante recalls that God’s favorable disposition to man enlightens the intellect and strengthens the will. Mike Aquilina paints a fusion of horizons, contrasting Broderick’s decades-long Lent with the modern temptation to misuse media and reminding us that the bishop’s example of faithful and loyal service is exactly what the Church needs today: more fidelity, not less.

Finally, to Robert McHugh, who often drives past the bishop’s gas station in Millbrook, finding there a memento of the estranged prelate’s long Lent, I would add the reverence I felt last summer when walking up the nearby path that Spellman walked alone in 1939 — the path that led, ultimately, to Broderick’s return to the Church, a wonderful story of reconciliation.

To submit a Letter to the Editor, click here: https://www.newoxfordreview.org/contact-us/letters-to-the-editor/