Newsletter

Kolbe Report 5-4-19

Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

It is no secret that young Catholics have been leaving the Church in droves for decades. The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) estimates that only 15% of Catholic young people in the United States continue to practice the Faith when they leave home. One prominent researcher at Georgetown University who has conducted numerous interviews with young Catholics about their reasons for abandoning the Faith has observed that the apparent conflict between the findings of the modern science and the Holy Bible and the traditional teaching of the Church has been a major factor in the mass exodus of young Catholics out of the Catholic Church. Not surprisingly, he argues that if more teachers in Catholic schools could show the harmony between the pillars of modern science - like Big Bang cosmology and biological evolution - and the Catholic Faith, the Church would keep more of its youth. But this reminds me of Planned Parenthood representatives who attribute the large number of teen pregnancies to a lack of sex education and who assure us that if only every school in the world included sex education in its curriculum, the teen pregnancy numbers would surely come down!

The fact of the matter is that most Catholic schools and universities have been teaching Big Bang cosmology and biological evolution for the last 60 years. Teaching more of this "science, falsely so called" will not slow the mass exodus of young Catholics out of the Church because the teaching of evolution does more to erode or destroy the faith of young Catholics than any other false teaching.   On the other hand, teaching the true Catholic doctrine of creation, demonstrating its perfect harmony with sound theology, philosophy, and natural science, and exposing the fatal flaws in the evolutionary accounts of the origins of man and the universe in their theistic and atheistic forms is a sure-fire way to shore up the foundations of the faith of Catholic young people and equip them to stand firm against the world, the flesh and the devil. Indeed, our experience with young Catholics all over the world has confirmed our conviction that the current crisis of faith could be quickly resolved if we simply taught the whole Catholic Faith to our youth on the foundation of the true Catholic doctrine of creation.

creation_angels

We recently witnessed a striking example of the power of the Catholic doctrine of creation to strengthen the Faith of Catholic young people when four Kolbe scientists and I had the privilege of spending three days with students and faculty at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Still River, Massachusetts. In addition to three consecutive days of presentations to all of the students from third through 12th grade, we were also able to give two evening presentations to parents, the first of which was made mandatory for all of the parents at the school by the headmaster, Brother Thomas Augustine. As a testimony to the good fruits brought forth from these three days, I would like to share a few excerpts from papers written by high school students highlighting the most important points they learned from the presentations.

(1) Evolution is a theory so easy to disprove, it is a wonder that anybody actually still believes it. There are a few very interesting facts that . . . everybody should know about the myth of evolution.

The concept that the human genome is supposedly "shared" with that of apes is now known to be a myth.  Scientists make mistakes all the time, and when it comes to sequencing DNA, they used a backwards method of figuring out the human genome: they said that we must be similar to apes, so they compared our DNA to that of apes to help "fill in the gaps."  And then they acted surprised when they found "proof" that we were similar to apes!

gorilla
Another false theory attached
to this one is debunked in the actual science of mutation that would have allowed us to evolve from apes.  Even with the extremely large (and unrealistic) time frame that scientists give to show that this happened, the rate at which mutations occur over generations still doesn't allow for that many changes in the genome to get from an ape to a human.

Another point is that there are huge gaps in the supposed evolutionary line, shown clearly by whales.  The second stage of the whale's evolution is shown to be a type of aquatic animal about ten feet long.  But the next step shows that somehow, one of these ten-foot-long animals had to have given birth to a totally different animal that grew to be sixty-six feet long, with a tail that was [out of] proportion to its predecessor, with no intermediary steps, such as a gradual increase in size.  This does not physically make sense.

(2) Theistic evolution caters to the religious demographic telling them they can believe in both evolution and God. By adding God into the equation evolutionists are able to account for all the shortcomings of the theory through the Creator and eliminate assumption with intelligent design. This is a brilliant strategy, through which evolution can be elevated to the rank of scientific theory if it weren't for one major problem. By entering God into the equation, the evolutionists must admit that He exists and now they must recognize His teaching. In 1858 Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, France, and, when asked who she was, replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Notice the use of the article, "the," and not, "an.'' If God therefore evolved man from a simpler organism, then Adam and Eve, His first humans, would have been conceived, not created. Because man had not yet fallen, neither Adam nor Eve would have had the stain of original sin on their soul at conception as we do. They would have been conceived immaculately but, because of Our Lady's statement at Lourdes we know that no other human was conceived immaculately other than the Blessed Mother herself.

LdyLourd
Evolution is a theory meant to discredit our nobility as human beings, saying we came from mere animals instead of the loving hand of God. It is taught in schools today to lead students away from the truth, from God, and from salvation. This backwards idea of education is a ploy from Satan, the father of lies, in attempt to deprive us of our birthright as children of  God, but if we adhere to true science, which is the study of God's creation, and to the theology of His Church, the darkness of ignorance is enlightened and the path to the Truth is made straight.

(3) An example that shows how destructive evolution is to science is a scenario involving the [biologist], Dr. Jerry Coyne. He noticed an outer layer of hair on babies' skin that puzzled him. He concluded from his scientific investigation that the hair has no function, and that it dates back to our ancestors, the apes. That was his professional opinion. When a baby is born, it is covered with this white yogurt-like substance that protects its skin from damage. We could wonder how that slimy substance could stick on a baby's smooth skin. Well, a simple solution to that problem is that it is kept on by hair, which explains why babies have an outer layer of hair. How could Doctor Coyne, with all his intelligence and years of research, not have seen that? The reason is he is blinded to reality by the thick wool of evolution and his own pride. Doctors like Jerry Coyne prohibit the advancement of science by their evolutionary theories.

(4) When people argue for the theory of evolution one of the things they tend to point to as evidence is that the Grand Canyon and other places have various horizontal layers of sediment. As one can see when looking at pictures of the Grand Canyon, from top to bottom are several layers of sediment, which you can tell apart from each other by slight differences in color. The theory is that these layers of sediment formed over millions of years and that each layer represents a certain geological time period, the older layers are towards the bottom and the newer layers are towards the top.

Grand_canyon
The key point where this theory conflicts with the Catholic Church is whether these
sedimentary layers were laid down over millions of years, or over a short time period. In order to properly deconstruct this theory, however, we must first present it in the strongest way we can.

The theory in the best form in which I can present it is thus: The sedimentary layers formed by a mixture of shale, mudstone, and weakly cemented sandstone or stillstone, have been formed over millions of years. All of the Grand Canyon sedimentary layers formed at sea level. The sea would be caused to come in, or "transgress" with any subsidence of the land, and any time the sea deepened significantly because of ice melting due to global warming, it would cause transgression. This happened many times, which is why we can clearly see so many separate layers of sediment.  Conversely, any time the water receded or the land rose, the land once again dried up.

The name for this is regression of the sea. Each time there is a regression, the landscape is uplifted and exposed, and therefore erodes. Some other ways in which sedimentary layers formed are by desert sands brought over by the wind, and by rivers which brought sediment down from higher levels after a regression.

The scientists and geologists who argue for an earth which is billions of years old argue that these layers could not have been formed quickly. They have many reasons which would take a very long time and a large amount of room on paper to detail.

When listening to the presentation last Wednesday on sedimentary rocks by the Kolbe Institute, I was very intrigued by the fact that inside of the sediment are fossilized tree trunks which were placed there vertically. Now if the sedimentary layers had been formed over millions of years, then why are there whole fossilized tree trunks inside of those rocks? If the layers had formed over millions of years, the tree trunks would not have been able to fossilize. They would have just decomposed. This points to the idea that these layers actually formed rather quickly. This key fact is very instrumental and helpful in showing that these sedimentary layers actually formed extremely quickly.

Cem-polystrate

(5) Darwin is an example of a scoffer, a person who speaks in a mocking tone. St. Peter warned us about these people in 2 Peter 3:3-7: "Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come, deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts". . . In our Catholic Faith, we have been taught that evolution is fake and is covering up the fact that God created all things and keeps them in existence . . . If our Faith is challenged by nonbelievers, we should be a light to guide them on the correct path. By using Scripture and views from Catholic scientists we can defend our Faith from being ridiculed by Atheists.

I hope you will join us in praying that we will soon be able to achieve our goal of ensuring that every Catholic young person in the world has at least one opportunity to hear a good defense of the true Catholic doctrine of creation, the foundation of the Holy Gospel.   If you can use your influence with the leadership at any Catholic seminary, university, chaplaincy, school, home-school co-op, or other youth centered community to obtain an invitation for us to offer a seminar or series of seminars, we will gladly go anywhere in the world - even if the hosting organization cannot afford to cover our expenses - to share this precious knowledge. We have also designed a confirmation retreat with a creation-focus, designed to be supported by the personal testimony of some of our young adult members who can testify to their slightly younger brothers and sisters as to the fundamental importance of the true Catholic doctrine of creation as the foundation of the faith and of a healthy spiritual life. We are ready and willing to go anywhere in the world to offer this confirmation retreat, as long as the local pastor is willing to give us at least one entire day with the confirmandi.

I am happy to report that our videographer is on track to complete the final editing of the DVD series by the end of June, God willing! Once the final editing has been completed, we plan to give the DVD series to some Church leaders for their review so that we can market the series more effectively with their endorsements. If you have influence with any influential Catholic clergy or lay leaders who might be willing to review the DVD series, please let me know, and we will be happy to arrange to give them a chance to preview the series as soon as it is available.

Finally, we have discovered that if you forward this newsletter to someone who "unsubscribes," that "unsubscription" will "unsubscribe" you! What is worse, once an email is "unsubscribed," our email server will never subscribe that email address again. It seems we have lost quite a few subscribers this way over the years! If you forward an email, it might be a good idea to ask the recipients to let you know if they don't want to receive any more forwarded emails from the Kolbe Center, but to please not "unsubscribe" lest they inadvertently "unsubscribe" you.

Please keep the Kolbe Center in your prayers.

Yours in Christ through the Holy Theotokos,

Hugh Owen

P.S. We have been granted a permit for our outreach to the public near the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, May 19, to expose the evolution fraud and to proclaim the truth of Creation and of Our Lord's Life-giving Passion, Death and Resurrection. If any of our readers would be willing and able to come to Washington, D.C. to participate in this project, please send me an email at howen@shentel.net If you live too far away to commute to the venue but would like to participate, we can find you a place to stay at our home in Virginia or with another family closer to Washington, D.C.

P.P.S. Our sixth annual leadership retreat will take place at St. Anne Retreat Center in Melbourne, Kentucky, from June 16 to June 22. The retreat is open to all Catholics (and their families) who are committed to advancing the mission of the Kolbe Center in their spheres of influence. If you would like more information about the schedule, facilities, and suggested donations for the retreat, please email me as soon as possible at howen@shentel.net .

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