SECTION II
Which deals with the for orthodox Catholics important question
"Has the foregoing truly been declared to be Catholic Theology?"
In the course of the research into this whole matter, three witnesses will be called up and their testimonies examined.
They are:
N. N. Wilders, Docteur en Théologie and Prof. of Theology.
Walter M. Abbott, SJ.
J. P. Kenny, SJ.
As already stated, this section II will examine if Teilhard's system has, in all seriousness, been called Catholic Theology, and if so, has this claim extended far enough in order for us to worry about its infiltration into Catholic schools.
These questions are gravely important because not only is Teilhard's system diametrically opposed to Divine Revelation, but as we saw, he has made his 'sex education' an integral part of that 'theology', and so Teilhard's 'sex teachings' are diametrically opposed to Divine Revelation and to two thousand years of Catholic Tradition.
The double question posed here will be answered with three quotations, but they are of the utmost importance and most revealing.
As a first witness I call before the Bar of History Professor N. WILDERS, Docteur en Théologie and himself also a Professor of Theology.
This man saw fit to write the following 'Foreword' to "CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION", a motley assortment of privately circulated teilhardian papers.
"Whatever reservations one may have about the decision (to make a selection out of the welter of teilhardian papers available) we feel nevertheless that the selection presented in this volume has the advantage of bringing out with equal clarity both the theoretical and practical aspects of the author's theological thought. In recent years much has been published about
Teilhard de Chardin's theological writings, both about his theology as a whole and about particular points in his teaching (5). Seldom in the history of theology has a writer's thought been the occasion, in so few years, of so much, often passionate, study and discussion. The number and the quality of the studies devoted to his work in this field make it abundantly clear how insistently PPre Teilhard's thought has captivated the attention of theologians, and what an unusually powerful stimulus it is to the theological speculation of our day".
This takes care of both questions put previously: has Teilhard's cesspool of ideas seriously been called a theology and if so, did it extend far enough to worry about its influence.
And then Prof. Wilders gives us an unexpected bonus in answering the unspoken question in the minds of many at the end of his Foreword:-
(5) "his teachings". Teilhard's 'teachings' were given out in grave disobedience, since he had been forbidden to teach by the Church since 1926, reinforced in 1947.
"Apart from Christological questions, most of the essays in this volume deal primarily with the problem (!) of Original Sin. Any informed reader will realise that what he will find are essays which Teilhard intended and hoped would be examined more closely by professional theologians. While some of his suggestions may still seem somewhat tentatively expressed, there can nevertheless be little doubt that it is in the direction he indicates that theological research on this issue is being pursued".
So there it is straight from the horse's mouth: if the interest in Teilhard's 'theology' is as worldwide as this man would like us to believe it is, and if this worldwide theological research is being pursued in the direction of Teilhard's rejection of the Dogma of Original Sin (both his 1922 and 1947 papers are in this edition), and if professional theologians now treat Teilhard's audacity as 'suggestions somewhat tentatively put', then we have here a clear description of the foundations on which the so-called 'Catholic part' of the One-World 'Church of Darkness' has been built. It can only be based on heresy and deception of this nature and magnitude.
My second witness before the Bar of History to testify to acceptance of Teilhard's ideas as a 'theology' and to the worldwide influence it commands is Walter M. ABBOTT S.J. His testimony is found in a footnote in his 'The Documents of Vatican II' on p. 269 in the middle of the Pastoral Constitution on 'The Church in the Modern World'. In order to appreciate the 'non sequitur' of the footnote, i.e. in order to show that this footnote most certainly does not follow from the text of the Council document, I will first quote here the relevant Conciliar text:-
"May the faithful therefore live in very close union with the men of their time. Let them strive to understand perfectly their way of thinking and feeling as expressed in their culture. Let them blend modern science and its theories and the understanding of its most recent discoveries with Christian morality and doctrine. Thus their religious practice and morality can keep pace with their scientific knowledge and with technology".
All this is of course perfectly natural and orthodox, and could have been written by anyone at any time of the Church's long history of evangelisation; by anyone that is who takes an interest in his brother and who has his eternal salvation at heart. One does not have to be a Teilhard de Chardin, one does not have to reject Original Sin, adopt a philosophy built on severe contradictions and embrace evolution-as-fact in order to put into practice what the Council here recommends. Nowhere does the Council state as Teilhard stipulates, that the Church's doctrine and morality must come to 'mesh' with modern science: quite the reverse, as is to be expected! Yet this is what the footnote has to offer 'by way of explanation':
"Here as elsewhere it is easy to recognise the compatibility of insights by thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin in his 'Divine Milieu' (6) (Harper, 1960) with the fundamental outlook of the Council. In a sense, this statement of the Constitution ratifies the basic inspiration of the 'nouvelle théologie' of the 1940's. For those familiar with some of the controversy over the 'nouvelle théologie' at the time, it may be of interest to note that several of its leading promoters, including Fathers Henri de Lubac S.J., Jean DaniJlou S.J. and Yves Congar O.P. served as expert consultants (periti) to the commission responsible for drafting this Constitution".
I think the Holy Spirit had greater obstacles to overcome on the floor of the Council where the voting took place than outside where a few teilhardian 'theologians' could only erect what the Holy Spirit would demolish anyhow.
So here we are told, not only that 'la nouvelle théologie' is in fact teilhardian, but that the influence of Teilhard as a theologian is so phenomenal that his view is the fundamental outlook of the whole Council, and so of the whole of Catholicism after Vatican II! If that is not assigning to Teilhard as a theologian a worldwide influence, then I wouldn't know what is. How anyone can read into the sober paragraph of the above-quoted Council document (1) a fundamentally teilhardian outlook (2) underlying the whole Council; or who can see in it (3) the ratification by the whole Church of a totally new and controversial 'theology', as well as (4) the approval of a book rejected by the Church for more than 40 years, defies comprehension!
By now the conclusion is becoming inescapable: if Teilhard is such a poor theologian, but his influence is so worldwide that the greatest names in Catholic theology are falling over each other to adopt his fundamental insights and system and to develop them into a new theology, then Teilhard can only be seen as a flag,
(6). Like everyone else who had an intense interest in seeing Teilhard accepted by the Church's Magisterium, Fr. Abbott knew that for 40 years (since 1926) and for very good reasons Rome had rejected outright giving an "Imprimatur" to Teilhard's most important book: "Le Milieu Divin". Here Fr. Abbott introduces into a Council document the rejected contents of this book as fundamental to an understanding of the whole of Vatican II and the 'New theology'.
an excuse, to cover a secret and totally forbidden cargo to be brought inside the Catholic Church. His powerful followers must have had ulterior motives before, during and after the Council in changing the whole of Catholic Philosophy and Theology. It was they who wanted a new faith, a faith that would one day unite the whole world in a new church of inter-communion, the One-World Church foreseen by Pope St. PIUS X, a 'Church of Darkness'. But in order that this could be done, they had to implement first what this Holy Pontiff had predicted, with Divine precision, would be needed for that:
"They have been carried away to 'another gospel' which they thought was the true Gospel of Jesus Christ".
How truly prophetic that was! For overnight the insanity of the modernist 'gospel' of Teilhard de Chardin, with its strained language and garbled utterances, provided them with the blueprint they had been looking for and which they could read perfectly! Thus it was that they, and they alone, became the architects of this new One-World Church of Inter-Communion, rejecting from their plans the living stones of the One True Church created in the image and likeness of the Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God!
If a third testimony is needed, then here it is.
Although anaemic as befitting the pen of one of Melbourne's dimmer lights, Fr. J. P. Kenny S.]., it has its function here. For just as the previous witness tried to convince us that 'the whole Church is teilhardian' because of Vatican II, so this 'teacher' of seminarians by day and of Christians by night tries to tell us that the whole Church is teilhardian because of the Pope. If this Fr. Kenny really believes what he writes, then he is 'approximate to heresy' according to an official assessment made of his contributions to a series of 'Catholic-Presbyterian' discussions, initiated in the late sixties by Archbishop Ronald Knox.
In 'The Advocate', the one-time Catholic weekly of the Melbourne Archdiocese, Fr. Kenny wrote a review of a book on Original Sin in the issue of JUL 6, 1972. The book was written by a French theologian, Fr. Henri Rondet. Apart from the fact that the erroneous tenets of this review run counter to TRENT (Denz . Sch. 1511), Holy Scripture (Rom. 5:12) and Tradition echoed by Pope Paul VI (Credo), the heretical implications made here are, that a personal sin of Adam is not Revealed Truth, is not Defined Truth, can be relegated to oblivion, and is still subject to dispute and argument.
The tone of the review is such that the official teaching of the Church is held up to ridicule and contempt for being rather timid and backward. Here is a quote from the review:-
"Rondet is a positive scholar, certainly not a creative thinker of the calibre of Rahner, Teilhard de Chardin or Congar. Something much bolder than Rondet's rather timorous and backward looking attempt is needed if a theologian is going to reformulate the Dogma of Original Sin (where did we hear that phrase before?) along the lines mapped out by Vatican II or Pope Paul...."
And then follows part of a speech by Pope Paul VI which, as can be expected, has nothing whatsoever to do with the reformulation of the Dogma of Original Sin.
Once again the name of Teilhard is freely linked with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and so with the whole post-conciliar renewal, to convey the impression that his influence is worldwide and universally accepted by the greatest names in Catholic theology. To quote the Holy Father here as being on the side of the heresies of Teilhard de Chardin is a gratuitous insult. It runs counter to the teachings of Pope Paul VI's famous (but never quoted) 'Credo of the People of God'.
We can now be satisfied that research in these matters is absolutely essential. Teilhard's teaching has been officially called a 'theology', 'the new theology'. It has provoked a worldwide interest and all the great names in Catholic theology are proudly supporting his thoughts and developing his ideas. And notwithstanding a consistent attitude of rejection and warning, the Catholic Church is held up (even as we saw in the most orthodox of documents) as having adopted his fundamental outlook. And finally, we have been repeatedly assured that the main thrust of 'the New Theology' is in the direction opened up by Teilhard's rejection of the Dogma of Original Sin as taught and understood by the Universal Church.
SOURCES OF THE QUOTES USED.
1. "LETTERS TO LEONTINE ZANTHA". Collins, 1969. JAN 26, 1936, p. 114.
2. "STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE", 1953. No other details available at present, but the quote is from an authentic source.
3. "Letter to ex-Dominican G.", OCT 4, 1950. "APPROACHES", 1966, printed this letter in full in its original French and the English translation. The letter is also quoted in 'The Truth about Teilhard de Chardin' by Mgr. Leo S. Schumacher, and in 'Le Concile et Teilhard', Maxime Gorce, 1963, p. 197.
4. "THE HUMAN SENSE", 1929. See remarks in the next quoted Source, No. 5
5. This long quote is from Teilhard's third attack on the Catholic Dogma of Original Sin. His first attack was contained in an untitled, unpublished paper in 1922, the one that landed by mistake in Rome, causing an uproar. His second attack is contained in his 1929 essay "THE HUMAN SENSE" containing his formal break with the Catholic Church. His third attack was delivered in another untitled, unpublished paper of 1947. Eventually the 1st and 3rd paper were published in "CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION", Collins, 1971, under the respective titles 'Notes on some possible historical representations of Original Sin' (1922), and 'Reflections on Original Sin' (1947). The middle paper, 'The Human Sense' of 1929, appeared eventually in a diluted form in "TOWARDS THE FUTURE", Collins, 1975. All of these works are in my possession, but my quotations are taken from a much earlier translation from the original French of these three papers, which appeared in two consecutive issues of "TRIUMPH", an orthodox American monthly magazine, NOV and DEC 1971, which provide us with the undiluted, and so much stronger, language in which the teilhardian attack on Original Sin and related Catholic teachings appears. These 'Triumph' articles too are in my library in their original (non-photocopied) form.
6. "THE PHENOMENON OF MAN". Fontana (Collins), 1965, p. 241.
7. Id, p. 241.
8. Id, p. 241-2.
9. "CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION". Collins, 1971. 'Notes on the modes of divine action in the universe', 1920, p. 28-29.
10. Id, p. 31.
11. Id, p. 31-32.
12. Id, p. 32.
13. Id, p. 32-33.
14. Id, p. 34.
15. "THE PHENOMENON OF MAN". Op.Cit. p.243.
16. Id, p. 246.
17. Id, p. 247.
18. Id, p. 294.
19. "THE HUMAN SENSE". See remarks made in (3) above.
20. Id.
21. "CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION". Op. Cit., p. 41.
'Fall, Redemption & Geocentrism', 1920.
22. Id. 'Notes on the modes.. etc.', p. 29.
23. "THE PHENOMENON OF MAN". Op.Cit., p.321.
24. Id, p. 291.