"For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers." (Holy Office, June 30, 1962).
As I mentioned in a previous post, the Worcester Diocesan Commission for Women has had New Age advocate Joyce Rupp as a guest speaker at its "Gather Us In" Conference. One guest speaker at this year's conference is Virginia Blass. Ms. Blass is involved with the Campion Renewal Center in Weston, Massachusetts. A page at the Campion Renewal Center website, which may be found here, states that, "Her major focus was the development of spiritual programs in parishes and eco-theology with the writings of Thomas Berry, CP."
Thomas Berry was a priest of the Passionist order and was considered a leader in the tradition of Teilhard de Chardin. Fr. Berry studied and was influenced by the work of the French Jesuit whose ideas are not compatible with Catholic teaching. See the Wikipedia article for background on both Fr. Berry and Pere Teilhard de Chardin here. The Church's monitum (or warning) regarding the writings of Pere Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., still stands. See here.
Cardinal Journet, in "La synthese du Pere Teilhard de Chardin est-elle dissociable?" (Nova et Vetera, April-June, 1966), says, "If...we accept Teilhard's vision of the world, we know from the start - we have been duly warned - which notions of traditional Christianity will have to be transposed, and which we must bid farewell: 'Creation, Spirit, Evil, God (and, more particularly, original Sin, Cross, Resurrection, Parousia, Charity..."
ReplyDeleteIn his classic work entitled "Trojan Horse in the City of God," Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains that, "In Teilhard's pantheistic, naturalistic 'religion' there is no place for the supernatural or the world of grace. Rather, union with God consists principally in assimilation into an evolutionary process, not in the supernatural life of grace infused in our souls through Baptism." (p.288) and he concludes that, "Evidence compels agreement with Philippe de la Trinite that it [Teilhard's theology-fiction] is 'a deformation of Christianity, which is transformed into an evolutionism of the naturalistic, monistic, and pantheistic brand.'" (Trojan Horse, p. 290, citing "Rome et Teilhard de Chardin" by Pere Philippe de la Trinite, Paris: Aubier, 1962).
"Christ saves. But must we not hasten to add that Christ, too, is saved by evolution?" That is another gem by Teilhard.
ReplyDeleteJacques Maritain’s reaction was that Teilhard is most anxious to preserve Christ; but "What a Christ!" This is no longer Jesus, the God-Man, the Redeemer; this is the initiator of a purely natural evolutionary process, and also its end—the Christ-Omega. Any unprejudiced mind must ask: Why should this cosmic force be called Christ? Teilhard has dreamed up an alleged cosmogenic force and has then tied onto it the label "Christ."
Maritain warns that we must not be fooled by this subterfuge of wrapping pantheism in traditional Catholic terms. He explains why: Teilhard, the obsessed evolutionist, has a basic conception of the world which cannot admit traditional Original Sin. Consequently his world has no place for the Jesus Christ of the Gospels, because, without Original Sin, the redemption of man through Christ loses its inner meaning. (The Peasant of the Garonne by Jacques Maritain
There is no place for the Jesus of the Gospels. But this new theology will welcome another who comes in his own name.
Sister Ellen Dabrieo, SND is another guest speaker for this conference. Although the Church has very definite norms for the use of Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, we read in The Boston Globe:
ReplyDelete"The feast day of Our Lady of Fatima was the most important religious celebration of the year for the Portuguese Catholics in the parish of Immaculate Conception Church in Stoughton -- and for Sister Ellen Dabrieo. As the only Portuguese-speaking member of the church's staff, she was accustomed to participating in the service and distributing communion. On that September day in 1984, Dabrieo expected an even larger throng than usual, because the new archbishop was coming to celebrate the Mass.
Shortly before the service, Law's private secretary sent word that Dabrieo should not distribute communion, because it would violate the rule that laity cannot give out communion when enough priests are available. The rule was rarely invoked in the Boston archdiocese, where the shortage of priests made it possible to involve laity in the Mass. But there were several priests at this celebration, and Law wanted to adhere to the orthodox liturgy.
When Dabrieo asked her pastor for advice, he told her, 'Play it by ear.' When the time came, she drank from the chalice, picked up a ciborium, and began to distribute communion. Then she felt a tap on her shoulder, and looked up. It was Law. 'Sister, we do not need you today,' he said. 'We have enough ordained ministers.'
Stunned, she withdrew. The staff of the church later wrote in protest to Law, but he was adamant. 'It's a problem, if you're a bishop, to involve yourself in something that's not in accord with church discipline,' he says. 'It sends the wrong message.'
Today, Dabrieo continues to minister to the Portuguese community in that parish. Law 'made me feel as if I were personally attacked,' she says. 'He sent the wrong message to the Portuguese community -- that I was of no value.'"
So we have a Religious Sister who was clearly told that she should not distribute Holy Communion because enough priests were available but decided to ignore the Cardinal and Church Law and to engage in disobedience. And then she has the audacity to say that the Cardinal was sending the "wrong message" to the faithful and to portray herself as some sort of "victim."
It's time to shut down the Commission for Women. The group is just suspect at this point.
The best concise presentation and refutation of the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin that I have read is a small (78-page) book by Fr. George H. Duggan. In a letter in the August 2003 issue of the Australian Catholic magazine, "AD2000," he describes the book (without mentioning his authorship) as follows:
ReplyDeleteIn 1968 the Mercier Press of Cork, Ireland, published Teilhardism and the Faith. This set out and criticised many of his leading ideas, many of which sprang from his erroneous notion of being. It discussed, among other topics, his fanciful theory that all matter, even a tiny molecule, is endowed with consciousness.
The final sentence of the book reads: "Teilhardism is a bold synthesis and, though less coherent than the systems of Spinoza and Hegel, it has a range and vitality that makes it attractive to many minds. Unfortunately, it is not compatible with the Christian faith."
The fact that these people are allowed to operate freely and lead so many souls to apostasy is scary.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I would also recommend Christ Denied by Rev. Paul A. Wickens.
ReplyDeleteFather Thomas Berry was attempting to create a new religion. As explained here:
ReplyDeletehttp://conservationcatholic.org/creation_spirituality.htm:
"The leading proponents of the new cosmology and other forms of neo-paganism include Thomas Berry, Mathew Fox, and Rosemary Radford Ruether. While they raise some legitimate concerns, as a rule their teachings differ radically from the Bible and Tradition of the Church. The central issue of concern is not so much what they teach, because they are free to teach anything they want, but rather their claim to provide Roman Catholic and Christian teachings. They are misleading many Catholics who are seeking the authentic teachings of the Bible and Church Tradition on issues of ecology and environmental justice.
For example, dissident Catholic priest Thomas Berry claims that the Christian story is no longer the story of the Earth or the integral story of humankind. Berry has said we should "put the Bible on the shelf" and "the only effective program available as our primary guide toward a viable human mode of being is the program offered by the Earth itself". Berry's beliefs stray far from the Church, for example: "We must rethink our ideas about God; we should place less emphasis on Christ as a person and redeemer." Berry insists that we quit our "obsessive concern" with Jesus Christ. In his own words, "the world is being called to a new post-denominational, even post Christian, belief system that sees the earth as a living being - mythologically, as Gaia, Mother Earth - with mankind as her consciousness." Berry's views are connected more to the views of animistic or shamanistic faiths than to Christian tradition."
And the Commission for Women has invited Virginia Blass to speak at its Gather Us In Conference knowing full well that she promotes the writings of Father Berry.
Devilish.