This is just so story more than it's an actual argument and I would say it's exactly the kind of essentialism that I was talking about previously. In fact, the version of the argument typically put forward by Anglo-sphere philosophers, and in this case, by the Vatican, are actually more nuanced. The reference to the "embodied" nature of cognition at least introduces a concept that supports a meaningful argument that can be engaged with or falsified.

It could be at the end of the day that there is something important about the biological basis of the experience and the role it plays in supporting cognition. But simply stipulating that it works that way doesn't represent forward motion in the conversation.