Hans,
If you think it’s ok “to believe in a genetic Adam and Eve, which were not our first parents” and if you think the citation you provided demonstrates that it’s ok… then, with all due respect, you’ve either misunderstood KidCatholic’s question or the pope’s statement, or both.
Let’s start with Pope Francis’ statement: he was asserting that it’s ok to accept
evolution. He said, "Evolution in nature is not opposed to the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.” However, the pope did not at all address the question of our first parents. That teaching is distinct from the question of evolution. We can believe in evolution, the pope stresses (although that’s a completely different question, and the way we believe in it still needs to fit within certain parameters).
But, can Pope Francis’ statement address KidCatholic’s question? Not at all. KidCatholic was looking at an article about ‘mitochondrial Eve’ and ‘y-chromosome Adam’. (All that these ‘names’ imply is that, in any period of time, there’s always going to be one woman who is the most recent common ancestor of all the living human beings, and likewise, one man. Since there are family trees that die out over time, the identity of that man and of that woman can change over time!) In the article that KidCatholic cited, it was mentioned that the timeframe in which these two lived was closer than previously thought.
However – and it’s really important to recognize this – mitochondrial Eve and y-chromosome Adam never physically met one another (the article states that he “lived between 120,000 and 156,000 years ago”, while she “lived between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago”). In other words, this scientific notion about shared genetic material is pointing to two distinct people who never had a baby together.
Now we get to KidCatholic’s question: can we take this notion about ‘mitochondrial Eve’ and ‘y-chromosome Adam’ and presume that these two
are the Adam and Eve from whom original sin originated and through whom it was passed down to us? You answered ‘yes’, and that answer is incorrect. As edwest2 pointed out, in Humani Generis we find that “original sin … proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all.”
The theological assertion hinges on original sin being committed by our first parents and then passed to all their children, and grandchildren, etc, etc, etc. It is not the teaching of the Church that, following Adam and Eve, some humans existed without original sin. If your assertion were to be examined closely, what it implies is that Adam mated with a non-human, and their children had original sin, and that at some later time, Eve somehow ‘got’ original sin, and she mated (with a non-human), and through those relations, her children ‘got’ original sin. Then, even more implausibly, their shared lineage mated, and these children ‘got’ original sin.
There’s only one other possible interpretation of what you’re suggesting: Adam lived – alone, without Eve – and mated with a non-human hominin. Millennia later, one of his great-great-great-great-granddaughters, Eve – already a human, and already subject to original sin – herself had babies. That’s implausible both theologically and scientifically. From a theological perspective, that means that Adam & Eve never met, never procreated, and that Eve is Adam’s
daughter, not
wife. That means that Genesis 2 – in which God creates a human with a soul to be Adam’s partner – is completely wrong. You can see how that presents a problem, right?
(It fails from a scientific perspective, too: if Eve were a descendant of Adam, then Adam’s wife would be the mitochondrial Eve, and not the Eve we’re talking about. Your assertion would lead to an inherent contradiction.)
That’s not what the Church teaches at all. Rather, the teaching is that “by yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state” (CCC, 404). Theologically, Adam was created by God; Eve was created for him as a companion; they sinned (together), lost original grace (together), and had children (together).
So, the answer to KidCatholic’s question is “no, the notion of ‘mitochondrial Eve’ and ‘y-chromosome Adam’
cannot be taken to be referring to the Adam and Eve of Scripture.”
