New Papal Preacher Promotes Homosexuality

Wolseley said:

chevy, you and me, we're Baltimore Catechism kinds of guys....maybe we dont understand, but we're not any the less saved than them what floats around in the ecclesiastical stratosphere.

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Wolseley said:

Let them indulge in their crystal glasses of Theologiae Exaltae '63. I'll come by and pick you up, and we'll go have a couple bottles of Carpenter's Common Beer. I have it on good authority that it was first brewed by the Boss Himself.

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JimR-OCDS said:

Carmelite Spirituality seeks union with the living God. As Jesuit, Teilhard sought no different.

Here is part of the article I posted earlier;


Cardinal Ratzinger in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy incorporates Teilhard's vision as a touchstone of the Catholic Mass:[51]


And

Cardinal Avery Dulles said in 2004:[52]


Let us know if you have a problem with Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) or Cardinal Dulles as well as Teilhard De Chardon.

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The Jesuits and the corruption of their charism exert a disproportionate influence on the Catholic Church today. Obviously, the Pope is a Jesuit. His closest friends and influencers are Jesuits. And Pope Francis clearly admires Teilhard, a Jesuit.

So, as I say, even if trying to grasp the man's thought is hopeless, the way, as we used to joke, nailing Jello to the wall is hopeless, we do need to know what it is and what its current cognates are. His ideas lend themselves to endless iterations (without necessarily any acknowledgment of their source -- who needs to footnote a feeling?).

I recommend reading the four Substack posts on the topic by Peter Kwasniewski as a primer in the era and its confusions. In the first part, he remarks about the long passage quoted by Pope Francis recently, "A bit wild and wooly, but one might be able to read it all in an orthodox way."
.....

Back to Teilhard. Peter Kwasniewski goes on to say, after the "wild and wooly" bit:

"Yet Teilhard de Chardin, the Piltdown paleontologist and “Omega Point” mystagogue, is not exactly an uncomplicated and uncontroversial figure. Phil Lawler describes him as "a French author whose odd mixture of eugenics and evolutionary theory drew several cautions from the Vatican during the pontificates of Pius XII and John XXIII. More recently his work has drawn interest from exponents of New Age spirituality."

In the third of Kwasniewski's posts, he looks at the assessment of recent authors, including Fr. Mankowski, who writes:

"Tall, dapper, handsome and aristocratic—I’ll have to take Kirsch’s word for it here—Teilhard de Chardin was essentially a fraud. At bottom, he was a Ramada Inn lounge singer posing as a metaphysician."
I cringe to admit I have weighty opinion against me. Both Joseph Ratzinger and Flannery O’Connor were deeply impressed by Teilhard. I can only explain this admiration by the surmise that neither admirer had any formal education in science, and both were thus innocently susceptible to Teilhard’s pseudo-scientific pedantries...
Had Teilhard stuck to his cotton-candy metaphysics, he probably would have been ignored by his principal antagonists both inside and outside the Church. It was his claim to be a serious paleontologist and unflinching respecter of scientific fact that put his theology in the crosshairs."

I must chime in here on the general assumption that Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, admired and was even influenced by Teilhard de Chardin. Maybe.

Keep in mind that one way Teilhard retains his hold among the theological elites is by evoking that slipperiest of "settled theories," evolution. Most academics are loathe to challenge it, lest they be branded anti-intellectual, so tight is the fist that strangles true scientific inquiry -- or, I should say, so absolute is the dictatorship on this matter. Question evolution (as a unified theory of the world, that is; spotted moths aside) and be shunned forever, is how it goes.

.... Ratzinger took Teilhard's ideas seriously, perhaps because he had that gentleman-scholar's way of graciously giving the benefit of the doubt, combined with the universally observed caution to avoid foreign, and in this matter, dangerous, academic ground. From what I've read, though, it seems more a case of the smarter person allowing someone's insights, however odd, to spark his own more profound thoughts, rather than delving into them on their own merit.

Certainly, portraying someone's position should not be mistaken for agreeing with it, necessarily. Teilhard was influential enough to merit at least that, at least at the time.

I'm not suggesting that some of Ratzinger's assessments weren't positive -- it seems as if they were. However, in our polarized age, we don't have what his attention could also be: patience. Ratzinger's overall demeanor was that of a gentle academic willing to hear everyone out (to the detriment, ultimately, of his disciplinary role as pontiff). My impression is that sometimes he was employing a Thomistic approach; he seems often simply to be holding Teilhard's position out at arm's length to get a good look at it for description's sake. To give him credit, how many of us are willing to do that -- to characterize our opponent fairly, even at the risk of being thought of as giving assent?

The point I want to make is that when Ratzinger was on his ground, he dismissed the man pretty decisively. In The Spirit of the Liturgy, one of his later, more mature works, Ratzinger spends a paragraph summarizing Teilhard's conception of the universe, which he saw as an evolutionary process in which the cosmos undergoes a "series of unions" towards "a growing synthesis, leading to the 'Noosphere', in which spirit and its understanding embrace the whole and are bended into a kind of living organism... In his view [emphasis added], the Eucharist... anticipates its goal and at the same time urges it on."

In the immediately following paragraph, Ratzinger offers a quite different, even opposing, view, and it is the one he commits to and expands upon for the rest of the chapter and, indeed, book. "The older tradition starts from a different conceptual model. Its image is not of an upward flying arrow, but of a kind of cross-shaped movement... "

The ensuing treatment simply leaves behind Teilhard's idea -- his main idea -- and never picks it up again. It does seem to be the case that in his writings, Ratzinger never directly refutes Teilhard. But if we look at what he does say about his own thought, we understand that he seems to regard Teilhard as requiring mention, if only to juxtapose him against his, Ratzinger's, own solid grasp of "the tradition."

In the same way, Teilhard requires mention today; he is that influential. If he didn't himself create the loopy, gnostic, pseudo-scientific claptrap passing for theology we endure today, he is a handy emblem of it. Sometimes it's helpful to put a face on bad ideas so they are recognizable.
....

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fide said:

It seems to me that you are engaging in theological eisegesis of Teilhard’s Scriptural eisegesis! A very fuzzy (eisegesis)squared ! And this is blurring your hearing of Ratzinger and Dulles (and Scripture!). To focus on the good Card. Ratzinger and Teilhard de Chardin, here is a portion from a well-written commentary: "The phony pedantry and empty metaphysical thrill of Teilhard de Chardin" - by LEILA MARIE LAWLER :

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JimR-OCDS said:

So, you listen to Leila Lawler and Peter Kwasniewski, a rad trad, instead of Pope's Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.


Thanks, but I'll stick to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church rather than a law woman or rad trad.

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chevyontheriver said:

In other words, you don't understand.

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JimR-OCDS said:

Oh, I understand what they said and also their motivation for rejecting what Pople Benedict XVI and the
Catholic Church has come to believe about Teilhard De Chardon.

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JimR-OCDS said:

Rad trad beliefs reject Vatican II and want
the church to return to their understanding of the teachings that came out of the Council of Trent.

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JimR-OCDS said:

Here's a response to the rad trad movement we see in this forum.

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chevyontheriver said:

Oh. You understand.

You could at least spell his name correctly, being a disciple of his and all. The 'd' in 'de' is not capitalized and it's 'Chardin' and not 'Chardon'. Details like getting a guy's name right matter for someone who says they understand. This is more than just a typo. Makes me wonder if you have ever held any of his books in your hands, let alone read them.

Note that I don't care one whit the typo 'Pople'. But getting a person's name wrong is a thing.

Are you repudiating the Council of Trent in favor of the teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin? I don't know how else to construe your sentence. How much of the Council of Trent is now passe?

We see a 'rad trad' movement in this forum? I'm not sure we have any actual 'rad trad' people who frequent OBOB. But if that's how you want to see some of us, go ahead.

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JimR-OCDS said:

So, you listen to Leila Lawler and Peter Kwasniewski, a rad trad, instead of Pope's Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.


Thanks, but I'll stick to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church rather than a law woman or rad trad.

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JimR-OCDS said:

Oye, having a capital D in de, what a sin I committed. Mea culpa

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JimR-OCDS said:

No, the council of Trent doesn't supersede the Vatican II council, which is the point I was
trying to make.

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JimR-OCDS said:

The article I posted which quotes Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Dulles, shows
how Teilhard de Chardon was misunderstood in the early days as he was silenced, but
later his theories were not only accepted, but used by Pope's, Bishops and priests of
out time.

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chevyontheriver said:

Oh, and spelling 'Chardin' as 'Chardon'. We should try to at least get a guy's name right. Below you got it wrong again. One could wonder if you ever held a book of his in your hands. You had a chance to say that you had, but didn't take the opportunity. Why?

Whatever point you were trying to make you made your point poorly. I wonder if you think Vatican II replaced the Council of Trent. That's what I asked and didn't get a direct answer. Makes me think you may have actually dumped the Council of Trent for the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. You don't say otherwise. Most Catholics I know keep to Trent AND Vatican II AND the rest of the teaching Church.

Whatever. Make him a Doctor of the Church. If I get to testify on the matter I am going to be saying he was a low grade scientist who tried to bring that low grade scientific understanding into theology, making something even worse. He is not the grand synthesis of Science and Faith. Scientifically he is a joke. A theology built on low end science is going to be low end too, and it is low end Gnosticism.

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JimR-OCDS said:

Well, you're wrong on most of my post except my spelling, which is really petty of you to get your dander up on.

I'm not taking your bait to provoke me.

Fact is, the Church now accepts the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, as I quoted Pope Benedict and Archbishop Dellos
and you don't. Fine, but don't trash the man here in this forum if you don't understand what he wrote nor what
Pope Benedict XVI wrote which you called babbling.

Either way, I regret coming back into this forum before Advent. My fault which I won't continue with.

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The Chilling Truth About Teilhard de Chardin

Many Catholics remain unaware of the Catholic Church's repeated censure of Teilhard and his works.

www.catholic365.com

chevyontheriver said:

Thank you again for telling me how I'm wrong and petty I am and how I don't understand things.

The 1962 monitum on the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin still stands unless and until a pope actually lifts that monitum. So the Church does not accept his writings. The Church officially, still, rejects those writings. I guess I just don't understand anything.

I may have succeeded in getting you to spell Teilhard's name correctly, so I suppose that is some consolation.

The Chilling Truth About Teilhard de Chardin

Many Catholics remain unaware of the Catholic Church's repeated censure of Teilhard and his works.

www.catholic365.com

https://ia601609.us.archive.org/0/items/the-truth-about-teilhard-schumacher/The_Truth_About_Teilhard_Schumacher_text.pdf

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