The Move to Make the Dissenter a Doctor of the Church!

By Sir Raymond J de Souza, KHS

A very interesting article by Heidi Schlumpf in the National Catholic Reporter from January 27, 2018, revealed some important realities regarding the thinking of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. What follows are some important segments from the article, accompanied by my simple comments. [Bold type is added for emphasis.]

Heidi Schlumpf writes:

“At a meeting of scientists and church leaders from around the world, members of the Pontifical Council for Culture unanimously approved a petition asking Pope Francis to waive the “Monitum” against Teilhard de Chardin’s writings that has been in effect since 1962.”

Unanimously! The lack of Catholic orthodoxy is evident among the members of the Pontifical Council for Culture! The Monitum of the Holy See declared in no uncertain terms that Teilhard’s writings were ambiguous, dangerous, and offensive to Catholic doctrine. But his fans today want Francis to undo what the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office declared, and to take the man’s doctrines out of the grave and elevate him to the level of… a Doctor of the Church!

It would be comical if it were not tragic!

According to Gerard O’Connell, writing for America, the Monitum stated quite clearly that:

“’Several works of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, some of which were posthumously published, are being edited and are gaining a good deal of success.’ It declared that ‘prescinding from a judgement about those points that concern the positive sciences, it is sufficiently clear that the above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine.’ For this reason, the Holy Office asked bishops, superiors of religious institutes, presidents of universities and rectors of seminaries ‘to protect the minds,’ especially of the young, ‘against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.’” (America, article by Gerard O’Connell, November 21, 2017).

So, according to the people who support Teilhard against the Monitum of the Holy See, we must pretend that there were no ambiguities and no doctrinal errors in his new religion, so as to restore his good name in the Church and stop attempting to protect the minds of young people! That is what you call wishful thinking, or a fool’s paradise.

Moreover, Heidi Schlumpf continues, “Scholars from the Pontifical Council for Culture said … that, while some of his writings may be open to constructive criticism [???], his ‘seminal thoughts’ [sic] and ‘prophetic vision’ [sic!] have been “inspiring theologians and scientists.”

Meanwhile, the extreme of nonsense happened when a sister of St. Joseph, Kathleen Duffy, in Philadelphia, started gathering signatures for a petition asking Teilhard to be named a doctor of the church! According to Schlumpf:

“’I think he deserves it,’ said Sr. Kathleen Duffy, professor of physics at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia and director of its Institute for Religion and Science.

The designation ‘doctor of the church’ honors individuals, theologians or scholars, whose teaching or thought has greatly benefited the church. The title has been bestowed on 36 people so far. [Note: usually Saints are declared Doctors, never dissenters.]

Duffy believes Teilhard’s attempts to bring together theology and science have a particular relevance for the church and the world today and that his ideas about “evolutionary Christianity” can provide hope in what many see as a chaotic time.

 ‘There is a scientific theory of chaos [???] that says you can’t have any new creation without disequilibrium,’ said Duffy. ‘But we can’t just sit back and say, ‘God will take care of it.’ There has to be some motivation on our part.’

‘Teilhard, who read the Christian Scriptures through the lens of the evolutionary story, took the process of how the universe came about (“cosmogenesis”) and projected it into the future, where increasing complexity would call for increasing unity (“Christogenesis”)’, Duffy explained.

‘He had the big picture and could see eons ahead where everything was converging,’ she said, adding that this convergence would require people to come together with an increased love of God and neighbor. ‘So even when we’re discouraged, Teilhard de Chardin can give us hope in chaos.’

In simple terms, the ‘evolution’ of the material universe would end in its union with the Christ of Teilhard in some distant future. Interesting how Teilhard inspired hope in some people and makes no mention of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Schlumpf’s article continues:

“Teilhard’s ideas have been popularized by those who embrace the ‘universe story,’ such as writer Thomas Berry, and by those working to ‘save the environment’. Perhaps his most famous quote — found in more than a few memes — is from his 1936 essay, ‘The Evolution of Chastity’ in Toward the Future:

‘Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.’”

I do not claim to make any sense in these ambiguous and confusing ideas. Continuing on:

“But too often, Duffy said, partial readings of Teilhard misinterpret his complex ideas, which were grounded in his mystical experiences and reflect the paschal mystery (sic!). ‘People see his zest for life, but you don’t get there without going through suffering,’ she said. ‘And Teilhard suffered greatly, including from depression. On the other hand, he said he was always in the presence of God.’”

Heidi Schlumpf notes that Sr. Duffy:

 “Is just one of many Catholic women religious who have been inspired by Teilhard, which has caused trouble in the past. Barbara Marx Hubbard, a non-Catholic supporter of ‘conscious evolution,’ spoke at the 2012 meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which was under Vatican discipline at the time. The talk drew a harsh rebuke from the then prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

Muller, who was replaced [by Francis] as Head of the Congregation in 2017, compared conscious evolution to Gnosticism, saying that it ‘does not offer anything which will nourish religious life.’”

His Eminence was correct: the doctrine of Teilhard according to which the evolution of the material universe ends up evolving into consciousness, developing into the “Cosmic Christ”, is mixed with pagan gnosis. This correct view of His Eminence will be demonstrated in subsequent articles. Teilhard de Chardin was indeed afflicted by a pagan Gnosticism, due to his fanatic adherence of universal evolution.

But my interest in this neo-pagan ‘theologian’, supposedly a candidate for the title of Doctor of the Church, was more basic than his gnostic theory of universal evolution. He was also a failed scientist. I found out his frauds and bluffs in the scientific “discoveries” on the so-called evolution of man. I studied the extensive research by the paper ‘Catolicismo” of Brazil, in a series of articles by prominent scholars in the sixties.

Before we delve into the gnostic paganism of Teilhard de Chardin, as Cardinal Muller described it, let us look at the fiction, bluffs and frauds of our ‘scientist”, much to the displeasure of his fans.

The myth of the Synanthropus Pekinensis: where Fr. Teilhard de Chardin acted as “scientist” was very informative. It was a real novel, more fitting for an Indiana Jones movie. The action took place in Choukoutien, near Beijing, China. The Swedish geologist Andersson, exploring this region in 1921, found fragments of quartz, a mineral that did not exist within a radius of four kilometers from the site. He then concluded that there were probably human fossils there.

The following year, the Austrian Zdansky discovered two molars, which only four years later were shown to the public (cf. Teilhard de, Chardin: “Le Synanthropus Pekinensis” (L’Anthropologie, vol. 45, 1935).

This tactic will be the rule in the process of creating the myth of the Synanthrope and to sell it to the public. It was again Andersson who, from 1922 to 1926, found several fossils. Another researcher, Birger Bohlin, began excavating in 1927. He discovered a tooth. He revealed his discovery to Davidson Black, of the “Peiping Union Medical College.” He thought the tooth must have belonged to an unknown human race, and named the hypothetical human type Homo Pekinensis or Synanthrope Pekinensis: He created a whole pre-historic ape-man based on one single tooth!

This you call ‘science’: The name is born before the creature, to acquire prestige in evolutionist propaganda.

Next article: Teilhard de Chardin and the FRAUD of the Piltdown Man followed by the BLUFF of the Peking Man