PRESS RELEASE from Hugh Owen, Director, Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, 301 South Main St. Woodstock, VA 22664

e-mail:

First International Catholic Conference on Creation

This was a first ! Never before has an international conference on creation been organised. It's been a much talked about project but had to wait for Hugh Owen to make it a reality. Educated at Princeton University, Hugh was formerly a Protestant. It was partly due to having witnessed his father drifting into anti-life secular humanism that he converted to the Catholic faith.

His father was Sir David Owen, Secretary General of International Planned Parenthood, who died in 1970. Hugh was baptised a Catholic two years later whilst at University. He became convinced that faith in macro-evolution, including theistic evolution, lay at the root of the spiritual and moral decline of modern times. He was equally convinced that a restoration of the traditional teaching of the Church on creation would help to bring about a moral and spiritual reformation.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 2000, with the encouragement of Fr. Robert Ruskamp of St Agnes Parish in Arlington, Virginia, he founded the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation. The Kolbe Center provided the base for hosting the first international Catholic conference on creation. The conference provided a forum for prominent Catholic theologians, philosophers and natural scientists to present evidence from their respective disciplines in favour of 'ex nihilo' creation as opposed to molecules to man evolution.

The conference was held in the United States at Seton School in Manassas, Virginia. It started Friday evening June 22, 2001 and ended mid-day Sunday morning June 24. Amongst the speakers was Prof. Josef Seifert , Rector of the International Academy of Philosophy, invited by Cardinal Poupard to address last year's Vatican Jubilee meeting Men and Women of Science.

Following an opening prayer by Fr. Brian Harrison of the Pontifical University of Puerto Rico, Robert Sungenis gave a talk entitled The Catholic Doctrine of Creation. The speaker, President of Catholic Apologetics International, specialises in biblical hermeneutics and has training in physics. He briefly summarised the Catholic doctrine on creation from a historical perspective, and showed that Scripture and Tradition strongly support a literal interpretation of Genesis, including special creation ex nihilo, a global flood and a relatively young earth and universe.

Next was Dr Robert Bennett, former Bell Labs physicist, who talked on Paradigms Lost. He showed that scientific paradigms such as evolution theory have changed many times during the course of history, whilst Divine Revelation remains the same. He concluded that we must hold fast to the latter and treat the former with caution.

The last speaker of the evening was Ambassador Alan Keyes. Despite a tumultuous thunderstorm and rain pounding on the roof, the powerful experienced voice and contagious enthusiasm of the ambassador triumphed. His spoke on Evolution, Creation, and Restoration. He described the negative effects political and social effects of the belief in molecules to man evolution, and the importance of a belief in creation to restore the moral values of the nation.

The conference organiser, Hugh Owen, opened the proceedings on Saturday morning. The first speaker was Gerard Keane, from Melbourne, Australia, author of Creation Discovered (up-dated version TAN books, 1999). His book provides a comprehensive summary of the scientific, theological and philosophical arguments against evolution theory written from a Catholic perspective. The title of his talk was The current state of the origins debate. It summarised the pros and cons of the four main answers to the question « What is the origin of man and the universe ? ». They are, atheistic evolution, six day special creation, theistic evolution and progressive creation. Mr Keane having followed the debate for many years is one of the few people in the Church such an informed grasp of the its multiple facets.

Professor Seifert was the next to speak on the subject What is Life ? Invited to lecture in the world's leading universities, he is amongst the leading philosophers of our day. His ability to convey complicated philosophical concepts in easily understandable terms captured the entire audience's attention. He presented overwhelming reasons based on pure logic why the evolutionary paradigm was philosophically barren of credibility. His gentle sense of humour guaranteed his success. One wondered after hearing his scholarly arguments how other philosophers could reconcile themselves to accept what he smilingly called a « silly theory ».

Before the lunch break, aerospace engineer Dr Joseph Strada gave a talk on The young Age of the Universe. The considerable scientific evidence he produced for a young earth and universe was new to most people. In schools only evidence for long ages is presented. Any argument which conflicts with such evidence is rejected. Consequently students are deprived of data necessary for them to form a balanced opinion.

The first talk in the afternoon was by Scripture scholar, Gerry Matatics, President of Biblical Foundations. It was entitled Early Fathers of the Church on Genesis. He showed the overwhelming support of the Doctors and Fathers for a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11.

This was followed by geneticist, Prof. Maciej Giertych, of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The title of his lecture was In the Beginning was Information. He demonstrated that the findings of modern genetics rule out « upward evolution », and that adaptation is the result of loss, not gain, of information. After numerous examples and slides he concluded that all the data from molecular biology points to a steady decline from an original state of greater genetic information content in the material world.

Dr. Thomas Drolesky, editor of the monthly journal Christ or Chaos spoke next on By their fruits you will know them. He developed the argument of how molecules to man evolution has contributed to the crisis of faith and decline of western civilisation.

There followed a short presentation by Hugh Miller on Important discoveries in paleochronology. He explained how radiocarbon dating provides major evidence for a young earth model. He is associated with research into radiocarbon dating of partly fossilised remains of dinosaurs from Alaska containing non-petrified matter susceptible to dating. The dates so obtained are considerably more recent than those from indirect radiometric dating.

In the evening sedimentologist Guy Berthault from France presented the results of his experiments on stratification which are devastating for modern geology. By invalidating the principles of stratigraphy, the experimental results question the entire geological time-scale. The work was published last year in the scientific journal Fusion under the heading Geological Dating Principles Challenged by Paleohydraulic Analysis.

It was this article, illustrated by means of video clips, that was presented to the conference. It explained how principles of stratigraphy developed three centuries years ago have been accepted in modern geology without question. They were used to construct the geological time-scale upon which evolution theory is based. Berthault's experiments show the principles do not apply where there is a water current. Bearing in mind that most stratified rocks were formed originally under water where currents abound, this research will have far-reaching effects.

The final lecture of the evening was by Dr Robin Bernhoft entitled The Uniqueness of Man. Dr Bernhoft, a trained surgeon, and pro-life activist showed how modern biology has demonstrated the magnificent and unique design of man, God's masterpiece. He listed various « constituences » which support evolution. They included, atheists, the sexually immoral, abortion supporters, social Darwinists, racists, and violators of each of the Commandments. He considers that truth requires us to understand the issue and the materialism to which it gives rise.

Sunday morning, Fr. Brian Harrison, who specialises in theology, talked about The non-evolutionary origin of the first woman : a truth of Catholic doctrine. In showing the significance of the historical fact of Eve's creation from Adam's side, he demonstrated that all evolutionary explanations of the appearance of the first woman were incompatible with the Church's magisterial teaching. As a result the entire molecules to man evolution theory is flawed.

The closing talk Creation and Evangelisation was by the organiser Hugh Owen, father of nine children. He stated his belief that the key to evangelising and re-evangelising the modern world was the fullness of the Catholic teaching on creation. He explained how the life and spirituality of St Maximillian Kolbe had inspired him to name the new organisation the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation.

The conference ended with mass celebrated in the conference hall by Fr. Brian Harrison.