(This article was originally published on 28th December 2024)
Background:
In May 2023 (last year), His Excellency Bishop Martinelli (H.E. Bp. Martinelli) commenced his first pastoral visit at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church Dubai.
I took the opportunity to schedule an appointment with our Bishop. The reason: I wanted to discuss the prospect and possibility of hosting a seminar on Evolution and Creation with the help of the Kolbe Center for the study of Creation, a lay Catholic Apostolate dedicated to the confrontation of the godless subject of evolution which has become the bedrock of modern science based purely on ideology than based on scientific evidence and the scientific method.
What prompted and encouraged us was our new Bishop, H.E. Bp. Martinelli’s repeated quote from the late Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI during his homilies in St. Mary’s Church, Dubai:
“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary“
(refer the complete sermon of Pope Benedict XVI, where this quote can be found and it’s context here)
You see, I had long being following debates, discussions, seminars, blogs, videos, etc. for some time (for 10 years or more). I had come to the irreconcilable conclusion that evolution was untenable (refer the main letter for more details in the first section on what exactly is meant by this word ‘evolution’).
What I also saw happening within the Catholic Church was the abandonment of the universal teaching, which was previously taught and held as an article of faith (and fact) for almost 2000 years by the Church – that of the subject of Special and Divine Creation. Neo-scholastics, so-called Thomists of the enlightenment age, & the ‘modern’ priestly academicians from every order or society within the Catholic Church, be it the Jesuits, Franciscans, or any other order/society worth mentioning, were merrily following the pied piper of evolution, and repeatedly pushing the subject of special Creation off the shelf, even within their own Catechesis. Suddenly, we were being told by our priests and Catholic educators that Genesis (especially that of the Creation passages in the first few chapters) should be read as allegorical or poetic literature and should not be considered ‘literally’. Suddenly, we went from the Creation by God being a supernatural and miraculous event (somewhere until the early 1900’s), to Pope Francis making this personal non-magisterial innuendo in 2014:
“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” (reference: click here)
The inconsistencies in that one statement from the current Pontiff was glaring and obvious. Catholics were now being indoctrinated into ‘selectively’ believing in miracles such as,
1) the virgin birth of Jesus,
2) the miracles performed by Jesus especially that of the miracle of changing water into wine at Canaan,
3) the multiplication of fish and loaves, the resurrection of Jesus,
4) the miracle of transubstantiation – the transformation of ordinary bread and wine into Jesus’s own body and blood at every mass that takes place, and
5) apparitions (approved by the Catholic Church) of our Holy Mother Mary in places like Fatima, Lourdes, amidst a few other places;
All the above (and more) while now having to strangely disbelieve that God could have performed a ‘miracle’ in the Creation of all things (as detailed in Genesis chapter 1 to 3)! God was not a ‘magician’ according to Pope Francis. But who in his right mind was claiming that God was a ‘magician’?
However, I had been happy to correspond with the founder of the Kolbe Center, Mr. Hugh Owen, who to my mind and knowledge is one of the few people who (along with the team that stands alongside him) defends the actual (Traditional) Catholic stance unremittingly, despite all the possible hostility, challenges, and disappointments that come their way in the heart-breaking and embarrassing stance taken by the majority of Catholic academicians and theologians today on the subject of evolution and special creation.
Back to our discussion with H.E. Bp. Martinelli, who was seemingly cordial, listening to us politely, and who received from us the letter we handed over detailing our views on this subject. As a casual defense or explanation, H.E. Bp. Martinelli made the often heard recourse of the uninitiated Catholic on this subject, the statement that ‘God could have used evolution‘. I did not offer any argument to his explanation at the point out of respect and politeness, since it was our first meeting with him, also knowing fully well that any statements or arguments made would need thorough and detailed discussions and explanations, which may not be the best thing to do considering the limited time we were allotted with H.E. Bp. Martinelli. We left the Bishop hoping that we would be allowed a further meeting on the subject. This was not to be.
In May 2024, during H.E. Bp. Martinelli’s second pastoral visit, we made it a point to meet him again. However instead of meeting him privately, we thought it best to meet him during one of his public audiences . We attended his Q&A session with the Young Adults Ministry (YAM) and during the Q&A we reminded H.E. Bp. Martinelli of our meeting last year and handed over our response to him to his statement made the previous year, that: ‘God could have used evolution‘. I cited a few other concerns I had, especially in light of such atheistic & naturalistic science being taught to our children, and the impact that homosexuality was having on the world in general. H.E. Bp. Martinelli seemed to avoid the subject of evolution by stating that it was a large and ‘complicated’ subject which would need a lot of time. He did foster an attempt to respond to the subject by taking a generalized view of the subject:
“What we need is to understand that life is a gift from God….But I think first of all, what we need now (what we need to address now, is) especially the negative understanding of evolution, is that life has no meaning. Therefore, the story of creation is exactly the contrary. To say the creation, each of us is part of the design of the Lord. So we are not by chance on earth. We are wanted, we are chosen, therefore we are honoured because we are loved and life is a vocation. (emphasis added)
That was it. There was no promise of fostering a further ‘dialogue’ or ‘pastoral listening’ meeting with us. I wondered where all the rules and buzz words of ‘synodality’ had disappeared. H.E. Bp. Martinelli offered me a casual wink as he left the meeting hall; I could tell by his expression that he was not pleased at the intrusion of a 45-50 year old at a YAM Q&A. Nevertheless, I followed up our meeting with frequent emails reminding H.E. Bp. Martinelli and his office of our meeting, hoping we would get his views and maybe an actual explanation on why the view that ‘God could have used evolution’ made more sense.
In the absence of any further response, 7 months since our last meeting and our first emails to H.E. Bp. Martinelli, I would like to make my response public, so that Catholics who often think on the lines that ‘God could have used evolution’ can read the objections from theology and science, and have an informed understanding from a Catholic perspective.
