I wouldn’t call it a mystery, especially considering they most likely had superior genes. And that of course undermines the notion of any “master race” based on genetics.
What about the “sin” part of his article?
Great thoughts from Msgr. Pope...this has been on my mind a great deal.
Adam and Eve were in perfect harmony with the will of God.
This has enormous implications for genetics. God, who knows all things, would certainly know which two people should mate and when. He knows everything about our makeup right down to the base pairs of the DNA and what exactly they will result in through the process of meiosis and then fertilization.
So as long as we were in God’s grace and doing His will, we were plugged into that minute knowledge. We had the infallible Hand of the Creator guiding us through the minefield of genetics.
The minute we departed from that, well, then the whole thing unraveled. Adam and Eve no longer came together in peace and tranquility but now you had lust causing them to mate at times that were never intended. Then you had Abel’s genetic information completely destroyed. Then people married whoever they wanted to, for lust or money or any other sinful reason, there was rape, there was fornication, there was murder and everything else. Unions that were never directly intended. Genes never meant to be lost.
The eugenicists could well have diagnosed the problem of “bad genetics”, but of course they are complete idiots about the solution. Mankind cannot fix it. Because mankind has only limited knowledge about the minutiae of genetics and no knowledge of the future. Only God’s omniscience can restore what was lost...and that can only happen when we submit to His will.
The Patriarchs could well have been the last gasp of that divinely ordered strain through Seth...eventually itself becoming whittled down to nothing by sin.