Second Sight

So that’s that then. Stephen Hawking has assured us that the laws of physics are sufficient to explain the universe we live in – and that we have no need to posit the possibility of God. His book, The Grand Design, will be published on September 9.

This is neither the time nor the place to focus on the detail of his arguments, and no doubt plenty of description will be forthcoming in the popular press and elsewhere. I want to focus initially on one remark he makes: “philosophy is dead.”

Bang goes the wisdom of two and a half millennia. But philosophy is not only not dead, it was never needed as much as it is now. One of the most important tasks in philosophy is to ensure that the right questions are asked and that the arguments which proceed stand up to rigorous examination. No wonder Hawking would like philosophy to be dead because he is wrong on both counts.

The drive of Hawking’s approach is that the theory, or rather the family of theories, he espouses leads to the possibility of 10 to the power of 500 different universes (try that on your calculator and watch it explode). Thus the extraordinary fine-tuning required for a universe which would eventually be able to support human life is not evidence for a designer God; it has in fact come about by chance. Since our universe is, by definition, the only one we can experience, we are fooled into thinking that it is the only one which exists, or has existed.

M theory, as it is known, is highly controversial within the scientific community; indeed there are eminent names who claim that it cannot properly be called a scientific theory at all. The idea of multiverses to explain the fine-tuning has been known as the “last refuge of the agnostic”. But let us assume that it is true, that there is an infinity of universes, and that our universe is an inevitable result of chance at work – where does that get us?

First, we are reminded of the theory of evolution. We have no difficulty in reconciling our belief in God as creator with evolution in which myriads of tiny chances, inevitably filtered by fitness to survive, develop into higher forms of life. God is not some sort of inventive superman who performs in the same sort of way as we do – but at an infinitely higher level. He transcends the universe; his creative action is utterly beyond our ken. If we use terms like “designer” it is only because the human mind and human vocabulary has no further reach. Our descriptions are only useful if we always bear in mind their gross inadequacy.

Similarly, if all the physical laws had been explained and proved (known as the Grand Theory of Everything) – which is a million miles from the case – our understanding of the actions of God would not be one whit greater: his existence and his actions are of a different order.

Most particularly it would not touch the question of how something existing comes out from nothing. That is a question which science cannot answer, and will never answer, because nothingness is not within its domain. Hawking apparently does not address this question – which is the true and ultimate Theory of Everything. But what philosophy can teach us is that neither he, nor you, nor I will ever explain creation, except through faith.

I wonder who would make the best patron saint for the Science and Faith column. The first candidate who springs to my mind is Thomas Aquinas (13th century). And I have several good reasons for this.

I like his instinctive refusal to accept establishment ideas lying down; his objective was the truth. While he was expected to become an abbot to swell his family’s coffers, he joined the Dominicans – an order taking a vow of poverty. He was even kidnapped by his relatives, but succeeding in escaping.

Both the Dominican and Fransiscan, mendicant orders, were very unpopular with a church which had become fat and comfortable in its position of power and profitable revenue. Not only was Thomas frequently attacked during his life, he was condemned after his death – although this was corrected before long.

Intellectually he was something of a rebel. Much of the philosophy and the theology of his time was NeoPlatonist. That is, it focussed on the ideals of mystical perfection, and regarded the world as very second rate. But Thomas was not afraid of taking a pagan philosopher, Aristotle, as his starting point. Much truth, he believed, could be learnt from studying the realities of this world, because it was a fundamentally rational example of God’s work. What we knew from Revelation would then deepen and complete the picture.

He welcomed the work of recent non Christian philosophers – Islamicists like Avicenna and Averroës, and the great Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. Indeed he referred to Averroës simply as “The commentator” – because of his superb commentaries on Aristotle.

But I reserve my highest admiration for the methodology of his work. The scholastic approach was characterised by adversarial debate. You proceeded by pitching different points of view against each other, and seeing which view survived the test. Thomas developed this to its highest form. Typically he would start by presenting the very strongest arguments  against the position he held. And he had to do this genuinely, giving himself the least quarter. He would explain his points, giving full reasons. Finally, he would take the objections one by one and demonstrate their inadequacy.

But you can see what I mean by Googling Summa Theologica, and reading for yourself. It’s challenging and stimulating reading. Dip where you like.

In his early day, his teacher Albertus Magnus said: ”We call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world.”

Finally, right at the end of his life, he reported that he had had a vision. He had been shown that everything he had written (over 8 million words) was so much straw. He was not told that his teaching was untrue – merely that it has fallen infinitely short of the full reality of truth.

On this blog we would not dare to compete with Aquinas, but we can share his readiness to question establishment positions, if that is where truth seems to lead. We do believe that good science leads us towards the wonder of God and not away. We are enthusiastic to look at contributions from any quarter - Catholic or otherwise. We are set up in such a way that objections and debate are strongly encouraged. And our friend Advocatus Diaboli is growling in the wings if he feels we aren’t being tough enough on ourselves. But withal, we acknowledge that however hard we try we shall always fall short of the truth that we seek

I wonder whether you agree that Thomas Aquinas is a good patron saint for us. And perhaps you have some sub patron saints to add. I look forward to your suggestions.

So we have a new set of cousins: the Neanderthals. We were already aware of a distant relationship - although they were never our direct forebears - because we shared a common ancestor some half a million years ago. But what we have discovered is a much closer similarity in our genetic codes, and strong evidence that interbreeding with humans took place. So once again we must look at what constitutes a being with an immortal soul, and whether Neanderthals qualify.

The first archaeological discovery was made in 1829, although it was then assumed to be from a primitive human ancestor. Fossils found in the German Neander valley some years later were eventually identified as a distinct species, homo neandertalensis. First signs of the species seem to have appeared over 400,000 years ago, complete characteristics were present 130,000 years ago and it survived until about 30,000 years ago. Its last community is thought to have been at Gibraltar - a fine place to see out such a history. We have only been around for less than 200,000 years - mere babes by comparison.

The signs of interbreeding (1 per cent to 4 per cent of the human genome) may not be of functional significance, but it demonstrates that we were so closely linked that we could breed fertile children together. This is a rule of thumb indication of a shared species. The interbreeding dates from about 60,000 years ago — around the time that we migrated from Africa into the Neanderthal heartland, which ranged from Europe to southern Siberia. Humans with pure African ancestry do not have Neanderthal genes.

But in general there seems to have been little mixing between Neanderthals and modern humans, and there are plenty of competing ideas about why they died out. These suggest the possibility that they were much weakened by frequent glacial climate change, that they had larger energy needs, they were ill-suited to forming diverse societies, that they simply weren’t so sophisticated and ingenious. But since there were different Neanderthal populations, spread wide geographically, there may well have been more than one cause.

In fact the stocky Neanderthal body was well set up for cold weather, and the wide spread of territory they covered suggest that they were good at adapting to different environments. Nor do we have to assume a slow, lumbering gait, although I would imagine that ballroom dancing would not have been a forté.

It is difficult to grade intelligence - if only because evolution would favour its development. And, should we use brain size as a measure, the Neanderthals, with slightly larger brains, would score more highly than modern humans. But in assessing true human characteristics it is the kind rather than the level of intelligence which counts. The ability to work with abstract concepts, or the existence of a mind which can introspect, reason and make free judgments are all signs of the immaterial qualities we would associate with the spiritual soul - even if they operated at a lower level.

Certainly they manufactured tools and weapons which were quite sophisticated for the time. We know that some of the lower animals, and some birds, are skilful toolmakers, but these are of a different order of inventiveness. So much so that it has been suggested that the Neanderthal techniques were copied from their modern human neighbours. However, their capacity to hunt large herd animals, requiring substantial courage and co-ordination, seems to have been very high. They could control fire and build complex shelters.

Some claim that objects buried with bodies were grave goods - witnessing to a belief in immortality; other have claimed that these were just incidental trash, and that burial was simply a way of disposing of a rotting corpse. There is always room for another explanation. But perhaps the recent discovery, in territory only used by Neanderthals, of perforated and painted sea shells, personal jewellery and containers for pigment used for skin painting is more difficult to explain away. As Professor Zilhao (Bristol University) put it: “This discovery, along with research on the rock strata at other cave sites, has huge implications for how we view the European Neanderthals… The differences between Neanderthals and modern humans may be much less than had been previously thought…”

In fact the use of symbolic communication suggests, some would say - implies - speech. And the substantial cooperation required for large-scale hunting or the communication of tool making skills would seem to require at least a simple language. Interestingly, very recent work has discovered that the mutations on the “language gene” FOXP2 which are not present in the chimpanzee and were thought to be unique to humans, are now known to be present in the Neanderthal. They appear, at least, to have the genes to speak.

The work on the Neanderthal genome, published in May, shows that the variations in proteins compared with ours are remarkably few - in fact 160 times fewer than the differences between man and chimpanzee. I know that the significance of this is hard to grasp for us who are not experts in this field so I use the summary given by Professor Hannon (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), who did this part of the work: “The news, so far, is not about how we differ from Neanderthals, but how we are so nearly identical, in terms of proteins.”

Everything which I have described is well backed by plausible evidence, but there is plenty of detail disagreement and speculation. If I speculate that we know of a sub-species of homo sapiens, who was intelligent, capable of abstract thought, revered its dead, and could communicate through language, then I speculate that we have someone with an immortal soul. What do you think?

My column this week could, for some of you, be one of the most useful things you have read for a long time. Not for all of you, inevitably, because some will know about it already, and others will - for a variety of reasons do nothing about it. I am going to write about the scientific basis of meditation and what it can do for those who choose to take it to heart.

For most of us, meditation suggests mystical Christian prayer, or Buddhist contemplation, or - for the right generation - the Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But, for the moment, put all that aside. Think instead of spending some 20 minutes in deep relaxation. And by deep, I mean very deep indeed. The effect will be a great calming of the spirit and tranquillity, a lowering of blood pressure, and, should you suffer from it, a marked relief of depression.

Deep relaxation is a skill. It is in theory accessible to everybody but it takes about a week of regular practice to acquire the rudiments. The skill then continues to deepen until you can call it to your aid instantaneously. As a trivial example, were you to feel my muscles in the dentist’s chair, you would find them completely relaxed, and my capacity for pain reduced to a minimum.

First, an exercise. Clench your fist as tight as you can - so tightly that it shakes with the pressure, Then relax it slowly, attending the growing feeling of relaxation. At the end you will find your fingers to be floppy but - more importantly - you have learned what relaxation feels like. Got the basic idea?

Now lie, or sit down comfortably, and relax every muscle in your body. Follow a sequence: hands, arms, shoulders, neck, face, chest, stomach, buttocks, legs and feet. Clench each muscle and then feel it slowly relax. Occasionally check back to see if earlier muscles have tightened. You will not find it easy and only practice will help you into a state you may never have experienced before A fully relaxed state uses so little energy that breathing becomes lighter and almost seems to cease.

Lie there, relaxed - perhaps listening to some tranquil music - for about 20 minutes. And then bring yourself to - but slowly; and get back to the trials of real life.

What is happening inside your brain? Theta waves associated with deep relaxation increase, and so do alpha waves, which tend to increase when the brain withdraws from intentional or challenging tasks. Beta waves which are needed for such tasks are few, and so are delta waves. Delta waves are associated with sleep - which is a quite different state from deep relaxation. But you don’t need to remember any of that. I put it in just to show that deep relaxation is a measurable state of the brain, induced from the relaxation of the body. You need to be neither holy nor clever to learn how to use it.

My original exploration of the subject started many years ago because the evidence showed that two separated periods of 20 minutes deep relaxation had a measurable and continuing effect on blood pressure. That investment of daily time has yielded high returns in so many ways.

Further practice develops further uses. I can now use “triggers”. I am able to deepen my relaxation throughout my body in the midst of ordinary life, simply by relaxing a hand. The number of occasions when this has checked an irritable remark or an imprudent decision is countless - although my wife would tell you that I still have some way to go. This brief, instant relaxation is also useful for, say, a mother of young children for whom five quiet minutes is a luxury.

Deep relaxation puts the brain into a highly suggestible state. And it becomes possible to use it for self-hypnotism - by definition this is conscious and controlled. It can be a valuable way of changing an unsatisfactory attitude of mind simply through autosuggestion. Don’t expect sudden conversion: this is not magic but just an effective way of moving the mind into constructive directions.

Now that I have demystified this neurological phenomenon, let me replace some of the mystery. I suggested that one might use music as a background. This helps to clear the mind and checks thought processes so that intellectual focus is curbed. But many people prefer to use a mantra - recited throughout the process. Many will know the Tibetan Buddhist mantra, om mani padme hum. No exact translation exists, but it relates to the virtues of withdrawing from self-centeredness.

I prefer one which is more overtly Christian. Maranatha (”Our Lord has come”) is popular; but I favour Julian of Norwich’s “All manner of thyng shall be wele”. It encompasses the idea of Christian peace and confidence. But it’s a personal choice.

More recently I have started to train myself to a further stage where I eschew mantras and simply place myself in the presence of God. I regard thought of divine attributes as a distraction since any human understanding diminishes rather than embellishes. Nor, of course, does any prayer of petition apply, since the only relevant reaction is open-ended wonder. I am not very good at this yet, but, as I have suggested, much practice is required at every stage.

My description of deep relaxation (and its use in prayer) has been short and personal. The professional audiotape I published several years ago was widely used, but is no longer available. However, secular accounts of deep relaxation are available in good bookshops for further study. I look forward to comments on www.secondsightblog.com from your experience - especially with regard to its use in prayer.

This contribution, and the two comments which follow immediately, have been copied from “The culture of community”. The comprehensiveness of John Candido’s contribution suggests that it should be posted separately to allow for the points made to be explored.

John Candido on 27 Apr 2010 at 12:49 pm

The Catholic Church in parts is a thoroughly disgusting institution. The Vatican is insensitive to outside opinion because it is so wrapped up in its own collective ego and position of power. Nobody elects them except themselves. The laity have no say as to who will be a Bishop, or any other high-ranking prelate within our dioceses or within the Vatican. Ask yourself, do they talk to anybody outside their inner circle? No, they do not. Why not? Because nobody has any power to remove anybody within the Vatican except the Pope, who can only go by resignation or death. What is so obvious about the Vatican is that as an institution, it is self-perpetuating, unelectable, and therefore moribund as a consequence. This is the essence of the Vatican.

Parts of the Vatican are tainted by a disgusting group of celibate paedophile protectors, who have the gall and arrogance to defend clergy who have commited crimes against children. In addition, the Pope’s capacity to govern the church is now under question because of decisions he took while he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and for former decisions he made while he was an Archbishop in his native Germany. His suitability to govern is also under question because of decisions he has taken while holding the office of Pope. Vis-a-vis, the apointment of Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson as a catholic bishop, his risable comment about condom use in Africa, for his poor handling of ecumenical relations with the Anglican Church in England, and for inadvertently insulting the people of the Islamic faith through a speech he gave at a German university. Sadly, it looks increasingly the case that the Pope should resign his office.

Please pause for a moment and contemplate what has happend to thousands of vulnerable children around the world. What parts of the Vatican and other diocesan bishops have done by protecting priests who have committed serious crimes is to spit into the faces of children, spit into the faces of women who have been abused, and spit upon the very face of Christ himself! And in tandem with their own bankrupt policies of clergy management, they have also treated the law with total contempt. There is no question that the modern world is aghast by this and will not acknowledge the church as having any credibility or integrity.

The Vatican as an institution lacks the virtues of courage and humility, and a governing culture bounded by transparency and accountability. These virtues and values of governance are linked, because you need courage in order to be humble and you need both courage and humility in order to accomodate transparency and accountability. To wit, the church needs to humbly admit its searing errors regarding child abusers and summon the courage to reform its structures, processes, disciplines, policies, and doctrines. In addition, it needs a thorough updating through doctrinal reform by looking at the knowledge gained through the research of universities into the human condition. It must incorporate into its doctrines a modern understanding of psychology, psychiatry, genetics, sexology, sociology, and anthropology. To fail to reform their thoroughly mediaeval doctrinal positions on sex, sexuality, and birth control, is utterly non-catholic because it is not consistent with the truth of modern knowledge as the world knows it. To remain ignorant of a modern understanding of human beings in order to maintain the status quo on all her teachings, is to truely lack courage and humility. In consequence, the Vatican is a poorly led coward’s paradise populated by paedophile protectors and law breakers.

One essential starting point that the church cannot compromise on is the notion that every human being, believer and non-believer alike, is absolutely entitled to their own conscience. The primacy of the individual conscience is an unasailable reality that cannot be diluted by any individual or power structure. It will take some courage and humility for the Vatican, their apologists, as well as the multitude of sycophants and conservative ratbags around the world, to accept this unconditionally. Any attempts to dilute this teaching on conscience while the modern secular world is watching will be fatal for the church’s mission to spread the Gospel. Not only will she be exposed for the antediluvian fossil that she is, but the modern world will declare her a risible farce.

How do we resist a power structure that is dysfunctional, vainglorious, self-perpetuating, and unassailable? What I have done over the last decade is to stop going to mass for good and to take up Christian Meditation, as rediscovered and taught by the late Fr. John Main OSB and currently led by Fr. Lawrence Freeman OSB. I will never return to this dark and forbidding institution, which claims an affinity with Jesus Christ, until it is thoroughly reformed and reconstructed. The Vatican is a pox on the Gospel, but she will never see this in a millenia. In addition, don’t send your children to mass or to a catholic school and stop giving any money to their charities and schools. Children can still be taught about the Gospel through personal instruction and the example of their families. Use the internet and the mass media to highlight your disatisfaction, and wherever possible litigate against any church employed individual or structure, that you have reasonable grounds to believe has committed crimes or assisted criminals.

The modern, civilised, and cosmopolitan world that we have grown up in demands that we take whatever civilised and legal action that is within our means, in order to rectify error in our church. The Catholic Church is currently in a very poor state and it needs our activism and our prayers. She must rediscover humility and courage, together with modern values of governance, such as transparency and accountability. We the laity and whoever is with us, must seek to change what is a structurely moribund institution, by confidently exposing lies, obfuscation, criminality, and ecclesiastical dysfunctionality.

claret on 27 Apr 2010 at 9:35 pm

I know that this is the most serious of subjects but I can’t help wondering what made John stop when he had just got started?!

It would seem that his views on the ‘primary of conscience’ are a ‘get out of jail free’ card that we should all have. Taken to a logical degree it might even be a matter of consience for a priest deprived of a natural outlet for his sexual desires through marriage, as demanded by the Church, to successfully reason with his consience ( as some have done,) that the objects of their sexual perversions enjoyed what was happening to them

(as some would have at the time,)and so it was sinless.

That aside i wonder what posters thought about the letter from the Bishops of England and Wales that was read out at Mass last weekend. (John is excused this as he does not attend Mass any more. Incidentally does Fr. Freeman?)

For me it fell short as it did not address the harm done to those lay Catholics who have loyally kept the faith. It did not say a word about what would happen to any member of the clergy convicted of criminal offences in the future. It said nothing about reform. As John rightly points out this is a letter from unaccountable Bishops who would seem to have taken no account of what any lay Catholic has to say. A corrupt power system sustained by corrupt power.

st.joseph on 28 Apr 2010 at 8:45 am

The Gospel reading for todays Mass is taken from St Johns Gospel.12;44-50. It is worth a look.

When the Body of Christ is suffering we who belong to His Body suffers too.

But however the Gospel reading today ought to give us consolation and to hang in there,The Eucharist gives us Life.

And He has said it.

We are so Blessed to be able to receive Our Lord in the Mass.

Jesus did not deny His Body and Blood to Judas, so why should we deny it to ourselves! No one can say we are worthy of such a Gift.

I have addressed in former columns the less fortunate aspects of the Church’s culture. In January I wrote of the dangers of power as an occasion of sin. In December last year I wrote of the poor state of communication in the community of the Church. And a number of incidental references have been made within other columns. So here I want to look at some aspects and difficulties which hinder changing the culture of an organisation. I am not an ecclesiast so I must draw on my experience of the management of large corporate organisations.

The biggest hurdle, which may throw the rider at the first fence, is recognising clearly the difference between how the organisation sees itself and how it actually is. The former is aspiration, the latter is gauged from behaviour. (We all have experience of this in our nightly examination of conscience.)

Some simple examples may suffice. The organisation may present itself as open, consultative, and distinguished by its truthfulness. It may declare itself as constant in its values and principles of business since its foundation. It may lay claim to an authority of service rather than domination, allowing all decisions to be taken at the lowest practicable level. It may see itself as achieving a close-bonded community of mutual respect and concern - it may often use the term “family” to epitomise this.

Its behaviour may show whether this is a true description or a figment of management’s imagination. It will be sincere in its belief, and many or all of its lower ranks will collude. But a management consultant, who - having seen it all before - can spot the discrepancies, may have great difficulty in getting them accepted. I have heard many a management, viewing a consultant’s report, say: “Oh, but they don’t really understand our business”, when the problem is precisely that in this respect the consultant does. One reason for blindness to culture is, as it happens, Darwinian. That is, the members of the organisation soon recognise that they have to buy into the values if they wish to have a comfortable and successful career. If they are naturally adapted to this, they survive; if not, they are likely to leave. Over a period of time the membership becomes more and more homogeneous. This is reinforced because we have a neurological quirk which gives an arational error signal to our consciousness when we fail to conform to the values of our group. This is, of course, strengthened by the experience that we tend to be liked by those with whom we agree, and disliked by those from whom we dissent.

These phenomena become stronger and stronger as we move up the pecking order. After all, not only are the seniors likely to be more thoroughly impregnated with the culture but they have reached their senior positions by their ability to fit the culture. This is unfortunate because cultural change will almost always have to come from above.

It is here that the big issue enters. That issue, the first temptation laid before Adam and Eve by the Father of Lies, is love of power. Those who openly proclaim that they love power for its own sake are rare. Those who believe that they need power in order to do the good which only they can do are many. From failed senior politicians to hapless chief executives, faith in an ability to benefit their fellows only through their retention of power abounds. Obtaining and retaining power justifies lies, manipulation and the destruction of others. But this is not just at senior levels: turn your head through 360 degrees, and you will see love of power at every angle. Then look inside yourself, if you dare.

In fact, human beings need cultures if they are to live harmoniously in society; a propensity to conformity and a willing acceptance of authority has evolved so that human beings can flourish. But cultures are not ipso facto moral or immoral. They may be fundamentally flawed - such as Marxism, or fundamentally in line with humanity, such as democracy. But every culture has its strong points and its fault lines. And cultures continually change: usually this is gradual but, over a period, may be considerable. So every culture must always be open to examination, criticism and rectification. Robert Townsend, the management guru, had a frank friend whose job it was to call “hogwash” whenever appropriate. Every pope, indeed every bishop, should have a “hogwash” caller. Chief executives require a burr or two under their saddles.

Substantial change of culture is so hard to achieve that many corporations simply fail because they cannot adapt to need. That need may be a change in the market, technical innovation, legislation, growing inefficiency, creeping infidelity to mission and so on. While I have been speaking generally it is interesting to note the major cultural changes attempted at Vatican II, when the drafts produced by the Vatican Congregations (old culture) were thrown out by the bishops and replaced by a deeper grasp of the unchanging fundamentals. But the Congregations remained at the executive centre, while the bishops dispersed. And much of the old culture, established for two millennia, threatens to return.

We are now faced with a new crisis of culture. The occasion is the cover-up of clerical paedophilia, but that is only a symptom of a deeply indurated, indeed pre-medieval, culture of authority - at variance with the Gospel. Not only will it take generations to change, but it has not yet, as is so often the case, been recognised by the management, who - like Pope John in the 1960s - alone can initiate the long process of change.

Not a strange dream to have at Eastertide. Christ, blooded with scourging and the crown of thorns, being mocked by his tormentors. But my waking mind saw clearly that the figure was Christ and Pope Benedict at the same time.

It is part of my job, and often my penance, to see virtually every comment on the Pope which is published in the English-speaking world. And, although the latest batch started with his statement on condoms and Aids in Africa, they now of course refer to his attitudes towards paedophilia, as Archbishop of Munich, as head of the CDF and as Pope. And we can be sure that these remarks will come thicker and faster as the Papal visit approaches.

I have no intention of producing an apologia for the Pope. Sometimes he has done or said exactly the right thing, sometimes more prudence  and less naivety would have been helpful. But in no instance has he acted without loving and thoughtful concern. Which is a great deal more than can be said of many of his critics, in their smug and ignorant righteousness.

That may be uncharitable, so I will try to make up for it by redoubling my prayers for the Pope this Easter.

O     O     O

I have not found it possible to give a brief, yet adequately detailed, account of the various elements in the stories which led to the accusations being made about the Pope. But below I give links to pieces which will help those who want to investigate them. And indeed to comment, where appropriate. I need hardly say that most of the world’s press have shown a greater interest in hate headlines than in constructive commentary.

A detailed and expert account regarding the secrecy imposed on those involved in paedophila cases.

Account of the Pope’s level of responsibility and attitude towards paedophile cases.

Vatican statement on Fr Lawrence Murphy

A revealing account by the Church judge in the Murphy case.

Discussion of the New York Times story on Fr Peter Hullermann

Last time I wrote about the “Hobbit”, the small hominid who descends from an ancient line but survived to be a contemporary of homo sapiens. Another contemporary of ours was the Neanderthal, also not thought to be a direct ancestor, but surviving - according to the most recent study - until 37,000 years ago. Homo sapiens has been around for 195,000 years. Neanderthals, and our probable ancestor homo erectus, show evidence of intelligent and imaginative life, together with a capacity for artistic expression and abstract symbolism.

This presents us with a modern-day version of the difficulty of reconciling the story of the six days of creation with science. While we solved that, we are still faced with the question of our descent from Adam, the generation of Eve and Original Sin. And in looking at these issues we are looking at matters so fundamental to our faith that the Magisterium has frequently put us on warning against attacking their historical reality. To take just one prominent theme, we teach that sin came into the world through one man, and so did redemption from sin. We must suppose that Paul, and indeed Jesus (in his human nature) assumed the biblical account to be factually true.

But a cat may look at a king, and I - who write with no authority and so can be safely ignored - can allow myself the luxury of a little speculation.

Just what are the essentials here? Man has a spiritual soul which is directly created by God; in some way which we do not understand that soul was infused into a hominid sufficiently evolved to receive it. We call this hominid man, and we distinguish him from the lower animals by his capacity for abstract thought, his free will and his moral sense.

Man, being a creature, has no innate right to be in relationship with God. And all our experience confirms his strong tendency to turn away from God and do evil. He inherits this tendency just as he inherits his humanity. In order to enter into relationship with God he must, directly or indirectly, accept redemption by Christ - which is always on offer.

If we limit ourselves to these essentials - and space obliges me to be brief in my listing - we can approach a number of questions which may trouble us.

There is no difficulty in maintaining that man was descended from one original couple, but it would seem that this couple lived nearly 200,000 years ago. And if we think that homo erectus may have had the essential qualities of a soul, it could be two million years before that.

The generation of Eve from Adam’s rib is of course possible to an omnipotent God, but, by human judgment, unlikely. Sexual reproduction, with its enormous evolutionary advantages, had been established for at least two billion years. So we might wonder why God found it necessary to make an exception. That wonder is increased by the thought that, since the distinguishing Y chromosome can be properly described as a de-natured version of the female X chromosome, it would be more likely that Adam would have been formed from Eve.

Original Sin, as a doctrine today, was formulated by St Augustine. It evolved from earlier Patristic ideas, and incorporated, somewhat unfortunately, a key mistranslation of St Paul. The story of the Fall has been deeply explored by the theologians and many fundamental understandings, as well as conundrums, have emerged. I am content to regard it as an inspired story full of spiritual truth: a mystery to be fruitfully mined.

What I can see is that the first man, given his moral sense and free will, immediately chose to sin. And this proneness to turn inwards to our selfish selves instead of outwards toward God and our neighbour is, with just two exceptions, a universal inheritance. It is rightly called “original” because it was with us from the first, and will be with us until we die. Even the personally innocent, such as the infant or the mentally handicapped, having human natures, inherit this tendency although they cannot express it.

It is part of human nature insofar as we share the essentially selfish nature of the non-human animal with the essentially spiritual aspect of our humanity. Indeed, it was Paul himself who most graphically wrote about the tension between these two warring aspects of our nature. Should we doubt the existence of Original Sin we only have to look momentarily into ourselves to find it.

So I would suggest that here we are talking about a story or a myth in the full sense of expressing deep truths within the conventions and the comprehensions of the time. It does not surprise me that the people of the New Testament were able to grasp the essential spiritual truths though the medium of what they understood to be literal history. We, who following Augustine’s own advice, aim not to cause scandal by using interpretations which others can see are plainly contradicted by the facts, must be ready to review our understanding when new knowledge becomes available. Provided that the new understanding does not derogate from the spiritual meaning of the old, and may indeed give us further insights, we have nothing to fear - at least in exploring it.

New interpretations have always been uncomfortable, as Galileo found out. But should they stand the test of theological examination and receive the blessing of the Church, they guide us towards the  deeper understanding of truth in which, we are promised, the Holy Spirit guides us. So this is an opportunity to explore this question, and to tell me I am talking bunkum if you wish.

Were I to show you the skeleton of an adult humanoid creature, standing about 40 inches in height, and with the brain capacity of a chimpanzee, you might immediately think of “Lucy”, a member of the hominid family, Australopithecus, which lived some three million years ago. Were I to tell you that these remains are in fact dated to about 18,000 years ago and were recovered from a small Indonesian island called Flores, you might perhaps want to revise your guess. You would probably settle for a surviving descendant of homo erectus, who first emerged from Africa about two million years ago, and may have been a direct forebear of homo sapiens. Restricted to their small environment, their brain capacity may well have shrunk to half its original size, a phenomenon not unknown in isolated non-human populations. Alternatively, the lack of challenge in a very restricted and safe environment may not have provided the evolutionary need for the brain, and skull, to enlarge.

This would have been mystery enough. The discovery of homo floresiensis (to be swiftly nicknamed the “Hobbit”) in 2004 presented us with a creature who should have been extinct millions of years ago, but was in fact our contemporary throughout most of human history. Indeed, if local legends are true, it might have survived as late as the 16th century. While you could be right about homo erectus, for the theory has respectable champions, the latest information suggests otherwise.

The bones of the legs and the pelvis show Hobbit to be bipedal, a characteristic of the homo line. But the feet are disproportionately long and lack proper arches. These primitive traits suggest an awkward, high-stepping, gait. But the big toe is aligned and not splayed out as it would be in an Australopithecine. The trapezoid bone in the wrist is ape-like in shape, and so less suited to tool making and similar operations than the normal homo version.

The skull is simply a mixture. The brain it encased was about the size of a grapefruit, similar to a chimpanzee, yet it has the narrow nose, brow arches and small teeth which suggest the homo line. Interestingly, the brain would have had an enlarged area which is believed to be associated with complex cognitive skills. This might explain the Hobbit’s ability to manufacture relatively sophisticated stone tools for hunting, and indeed may have influenced our homo sapiens ancestors in this regard. And they also used fire for cooking.

So a theory is gaining ground that the Hobbit is a newly discovered branch on the homo line which emerged before, and perhaps well before, homo erectus. Until this point the oldest hominid who moved out from Africa was thought to be homo erectus, and its remains, dating from about 1.8 million years ago, have been found in Georgia. But the Hobbit suggests the possibility that the first members of the human family spread out from Africa, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years before that, and survived until relatively modern times.

Tracing the hominid tree from the last ancestor we shared with the apes has always been a complex task. The separation took place about six mya (million years ago). The evidence is restricted to chance finds which have survived because conditions happened to have been conducive. And all too often these finds are no more than clues from which inferences have to be made. Nevertheless, broad patterns appear.

Perhaps the most telling of these is the increase in brain size. We first find this at an average of 450cc about 3.5 mya. By 2.5 mya (homo habilis) it has grown to 750cc, and at 2.5 mya, with the arrival of homo erectus, it has become 1000cc. At around 195,000 years ago, homo sapiens appears, with a brain capacity of 1330 cc.

There is a parallel pattern of apparent brain functionality. The first, and crude, stone tools appear at 2.5 mya, and the skill gradually develops to sophisticated blades and grinding stones about 100,000 years before homo sapiens (who will graduate to bronze tools about 95,000 years later, shortly before the first evidence of writing).

The use of fire, shared childcare, purpose-built shelters and cooking all appear before homo sapiens. And a report in December 2009 described the relics of sophisticated settlements (near the Dead Sea) dated to 750,000 years ago - half a million years earlier than we previously thought.

If we throw into the mix painted Neanderthal jewellery, made some 10,000 years before homo sapiens entered Europe, and take into account somewhat less secure evidence of burial practices, it becomes increasingly difficult to square the scientific evidence with the concept of the first ensouled hominids being members of our own species. By “ensouled” I mean with intelligence, a sense of right and wrong and a recognition of the sacred.

I am aware of the difficulty this causes with the concept of sin coming into the world through one man - which led to Pius XII to say: “Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual…” I do not pretend to reconcile the scientific evidence with the theological. I rest in the confidence that, when both are properly understood, they will be reconcilable. But you may well have a solution to give us on www.secondsightblog.com. I may return to this question in a future column.

Postscript. My friend Edmund Adamus points out that the view of the Congregation for the Clergy, quoted in my last column, that the faithful had no business advising the hierarchy, was shortly to be reversed by the 1983 revision of Canon Law. So thank you to him for refining the point I was making.

A decade ago John Paul II emphasised the error of treating the Church as though it were a multinational corporation and thus subject to a purely human form of authority. While the point is well taken, the human side of the Church remains vulnerable to our fallen human nature. We see a clear precedent in the strictures which Jesus reserved for the leaders of Judaism despite their guardianship of the divine covenant.

Most people will recall that Lord Acton’s claim that power tends to corrupt was written about the Renaissance popes. Fewer will know (if only because of its very recent publication) of a study which measures and confirms this tendency, under experimental conditions. In simple terms, the more powerful (and secure) you are, the higher the standards you are likely to enforce on the people you control, and the lower the standards you apply to yourself. In other words, power is a serious “occasion of sin”.

We learnt, at our mother’s knee, that if occasions of sin cannot be avoided, they must be minimised by prudent precautions. Thus all those who hold ecclesiastical authority, from pope to priest, must work actively against the corruption of power. We have seen in microcosm what happens in a national clergy whose power is so institutionalised that even independent civil authority defers. In macrocosm we must accept that the Church has been corrupted by power at least since it became the pet religion of the Roman Empire. We should not be surprised; it is only continual, active defence against the corruption of power which can mitigate even if it cannot entirely avoid.

While abuse of power is found in other religions, the Catholic Church’s case is particularly difficult because its unity depends on a firm basis of revealed doctrine and the lynchpin of the successor to St Peter. It cannot be otherwise, nor would we wish it, but the danger of this near-absolute power is exceedingly great. It may be useful to look at some examples at random.

Outstanding, of course, has been the refusal to allow freedom of conscience in choice of religion. Error was held to have no rights. The result was enforcement of Catholic teaching, including the extremes of torture and death. It led to the Catholic colonisation of territories, and so the use of civil force for preservation. There are few behaviours which we deplore in Islam which have not been enthusiastically pursued by the Church in its time. Even in later days when this was achieved through concordats, it continued. When Vatican II finally accepted the full rights of conscience, the tardiness in dismantling the shameful concordat with Franco’s Spain demonstrated the lingering desire to maintain power at the expense of the individual. When John Paul II announced in 2001 that the Holy See “has always been vigorous in defending freedom of conscience and religious liberty”, we are lost for comment.

Vatican II rightly emphasised that the bishops, although acting in communion with the Pope, hold their diocesan powers independently as successors to the Apostles. But it has become hard to distinguish in practice the difference between being in communion and simply being a delegate. And this is made all the more obscure by the relatively novel practice of the pope choosing the diocesan bishops. A new bishop should, of course, be chosen by the local Church, with full consultation at all levels, while the Pope retains a veto which would only be used with extreme rarity. This would be a charitable way of protecting a pope from the temptation to use placemen.

I have written before about the Church’s own principle of subsidiarity - that decisions should always be taken at the lowest practicable level. In general this is continually breached (perhaps the arrogation of the translation of the English translation of the liturgy by the Vatican is the outstanding current example).

And the attitude towards being a listening community is well summed up by the Congregation for the Clergy’s statement: “All believers have the right and duty to take an active part in the mission given to the Church… but they do not have either the right or duty to give advice to the hierarchy in their exercise of their pastoral task.” Can we imagine a modern business, hoping to be successful, informing its members that they have neither the right nor the duty to give advice to management?

We do in fact know a good deal about how secular cultures form, how they are preserved and how they change. This may give us some clues. Here, however, I will simply quote from two recent popes, both presumably guided by the same Spirit.

First: “The Church has always opposed errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations…”

Second: “To protect the Catholic faith against errors arising from the part of some of the Christian faithful it appeared highly necessary to us, whose principal task is to confirm his brethren in faith, to add (new) norms to the text of the presently valid Code of Canon Law, in order to impose expressly the duty to preserve the truths proposed definitively by the Magisterium of the Church, and, concerning the same matter, to institute canonical sanctions (against the violators).”

You may see, as one senior theologian did, a marked contrast between the two approaches to the use of authority. Which one relates, do you think, most closely to the Gospel? How can the Church at all levels maintain its God given authority while minimising the abuse of power? The answers to those questions may define the course of what the Church will give the world over the long distant future.