Adam and Eve Are Driven out of Eden (1866), by Gustave Doré (1832-1883) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** (9-25-11; rev. 1-6-22) *** Words of Eric S. Giunta will be in blue. * * * * * The encyclical I cited (Humani Generis) allows the possibility of evolution, but it states that one must believe in a literal first human pair (rejection of polygenism) and that God creates a human soul at each conception. So this doesn’t follow from evolution per se.... Read more
Ven. Pope Pius XII’s encyclical, Humani Generis (12 August 1950) was designed (in the subtitle) to counter “some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine”: 37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural... Read more
. . . and Anti-Catholic blaming of Catholic apologists for them Posthumous Portrait of Martin Luther as an Augustinian Monk (after 1546), from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] * * * (8-27-11) * * * It’s simply amazing, the amount of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda anti-Catholics dish out. They make Baghdad Bob (remember that clown?) look like Abraham Lincoln. I would have thought that my previous copiously documented examination of this nonsense had laid to rest... Read more
Anti-Catholic Attempts to Blame Catholics for a Questionable Luther Citation Passed Down by Three Admiring Protestants Photograph by “Bernd1968” [public domain / Pixabay] * * * (8-20-11) * * I wrote a paper on Luther’s view of the book of Esther (24 March 2007). In it I explained (right at the top) that I had made an honest mistake, and was correcting it (unfortunately, it made it into my book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, completed in 1996 and... Read more
An intact human embryo at 6-week embryonic age (or 8-week gestational age), from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy case [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license] * * * (8-12-11) * * * Sometimes, in order to justify use of contraception, the advocate will attempt to equate NFP with it, as if there is no essential difference. It’s the same dynamic as running down annulment as “Catholic divorce” as if it is not essentially different, either. I think we can state... Read more
Model of a contraceptive pill, Europe, c. 1970 [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license] * * (8-12-11) * * * “Birth Control” Pills Cause Early Abortions (J. T. Finn, updated April 23, 2005) [Pro-Life America] The Pill – How it Works and Fails (John Wilkes) [distributed by American Life League] Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent (Walter L. Larimore, MD; Joseph B. Stanford, MD, MSPH) [Archives of Family Medicine, February 2000, Volume 9 Number 2,... Read more
Sketch of G. K. Chesterton (unknown, c. 1920) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] G. K. Chesterton was a lay apologist with no theological education and no college degree (yet he was the most successful Catholic apologist of the 20th century) * * * (8-2-11) * * * Silly, Foolish Pronouncements by Anti-Catholic Polemicists: TAO (The Anonymous One): But in practice, that top-down management Rome provides allows loose cannons like Armstrong to do what they do, even when what they do... Read more
Original title: “Typical ‘Science vs. Catholicism’ Criticisms (and Myths) from an Agnostic Scientist Refuted” (7-29-11) Lavoisier: line engraving by Louis Jean Desire Delaistre, after a design by Julien Leopold Boilly [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] Antoine Lavoisier: the Father of Chemistry (1743-1794) was the real “martyr for science”: not Galileo or the rank heretic Bruno. Galileo was sentenced to comfortable house arrest by a Catholic tribunal. Lavoisier was not nearly so lucky: he got his head cut off by... Read more
. . . Drawn from So-Called “Symbolic” Evil Acts Candlelight vigil in London for the victims of the Peshawar school massacre, in which 141 people were killed. Photo by Kashif Haque (17 December 2014) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license] * * * (7-28-11) * * * I wrote the following in a personal letter today; thought I’d share it with you (with a few little additions, as I read it over): What frosts me about things like this... Read more
[Originally published with Catholic Answers in mid-May 2012 (completed on 11-4-11) and edited by Todd Aglialoro, who also edited A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, The Catholic Verses, and The One-Minute Apologist (all bestsellers). This is a slightly revised edition from January 2025, and the copyright has now reverted to my own name. The book is 135 pages long] *** [cover design by Devin Schadt] *** — For purchase information, go to the bottom of the page — *** TABLE OF CONTENTS... Read more
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