De Chardin, the Modernist's friend

[Padraic42]

Segments from "CHRIST DENIED - ORIGIN OF THE PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS IN THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH by Rev. Paul A. Wickens

"The record of Ecclesiastical decisions regarding the
person and the writings of Teilhard de Chardin.

1926 -- Fr. de Chardin's superiors In the Jesuit Order
forbade him to teach any longer.

1933 -- Rome ordered him to give up his post in Paris.

1939 -- Rome banned his work "L' Energe Humaine".

1941 -- de Chardin submitted to Rome his most important
work. "Le Phenomene Humain".

1947 -- Rome forbade him to write or teach on
philosophical subjects.

1948 -- de Chardin was called to Rome by the Superior
General of the Jesuits who hoped to acquire permission
from the Holy See for the publication of his most
important work, "Le Phenomene Humain". But the
prohibition to publish it Issued In 1944, was again
renewed. De Chardin was also forbidden to take a
teaching post In the College de France.

1949 -- Permission to publish "Le Groupe Zoologique"
was refused.

1955 -- de Chardin forbidden by his Superiors to attend
the lnternational Congress on Paleontology. He died
suddenly in this year.

1957 --The Supreme Authority of the Holy Office In a
decree dated Nov. 15, forbade the works of de Chardin
to be retained In libraries, Including those of
Religious Institutes. His books were not to be sold In
Catholic bookshops and were not to be translated In
other languages.

1958 -- In April of this year, all Jesuit publications
In Spain carried a notice from the Spanish Provincial
of the Jesuits that de Chardin's works had been
published In Spanish without previous ecclesiastical
examination and In defiance of the decrees of the Holy
See.

1962 -- Monitum -- given at Rome from the Holy Office,
June 30, 1972. "Several works of Fr. Pere Teilhard de
Chardin, some of which were posthumously published, are
being edited and are gaining a good deal of success.
Prescinding from a Judgment 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 eminent
and most revered Fathers of the Supreme Sacred
Congregation of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries,
as well as 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."

1963 --The Vicariate of Rome (a Diocese ruled in the
name of Pope Paul VI by his Cardinal Vicar) , In a
decree dated 30th September, required that Catholic
booksellers In Rome should withdraw from circulation
the works of de Chardin, with those books which favor
his his doctrine. (The text of this document was
published In the daily "L'Aurore" of Parish, dated
October 2, 1963, and was reproduced in "Nouvelles de
Chretienne". October 10, 1963.

1967 -- (Reply received from Apostolic Delegation,
Washington, D.C., dated October 20, 1967. to the
question as to whether the Monitum against Teilhard's
writings had been rescinded.) "I wish to assure you
that the Monitum issued by the Sacred Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith concerning the writings of
Fr. Teilhard de Chardin is still in effect. At no time
has a distinction been made with regard to any one of
his writings. I am enclosing herewith a copy of the
English translation of the Monitum which was Issued on
June 30th, 1962..."

Appendix A Teilhard's Own Words

On Racial Matters

1. Non-equality of Races -- "The more I get around the
world, the more I fear that (people) are making a grave
mistake recognizing equality of races in the face of
all biological evidence."

2. Chinese -- "I see an increasing possibility ... the
Chinese are arrested primitives, victims of retarded
development whose anthropological substance is inferior
to ours. Everything Chinese ... reduces to zero."

3. Blacks -- ". . . no humane hopes for an organized
society must cause us to forget that the human stratum
may not be homogeneous. If it were not, it would be
necessary to find for the Chinese, as for the Negroes,
their special function, which may not (by biological
impossibility) be that of the whites." (April 6, 1927)
"A certain W. G ..... claims to have discovered ....
wisdom (well buried, I must say) in a Negro tribe."

4. Africa -- "They (the natives will merge or disappear
... (some) will say I am cruel and insufficiently
Catholic. The truth is ... that progress is a force
that insists on the destruction of everything which has
outlived its time."

5. India -- "The Hindus have been a disappointment to
me. In them, too, the creative power seems in a pretty
poor way." "India seems just incapable of self-
government as China or Malaya."

On Political Matters

1. "Fascism opens its arms to the future... Fascism
quite possibly represents ... the blueprint for the
world tomorrow."

2. "I am with Mussolini against the liberals on the
left and the missiologists."

3. "Peace cannot mean anything but a higher process of
conquest."

4. "Personally, I would forgive the ruthless ways of
fascism, if fascism did not shelter anti-progressive
forces."

5. "A progressive democrat is not fundamentally
different from a really progressive totalitarian."

On Founding A New Religion

1. "Sometimes I am a bit afraid, when I think of the
transposition to which I must submit my mind concerning
the common notions of creation, inspiration, miracle,
original sin, resurrection, etc., in order to be able
to accept them." (Letter of Dec. 17, 1922.)

2. "Rome does not want me to return to my
professorship. They do not seem to have taken a dislike
to me, far from it; but they want to save Religion ...
I would take enormous delight in breaking all ties."
(Letter, Feb. 14, 1927.)

3. "What increasingly dominates my interest is the
effort to establish within myself, and to diffuse
around me, a new religion (let's call it an improved
Christianity if you like) whose personal God is no
longer the great neolithic landowner of times gone by,
but the Soul of the world..." (Letter to Leontine
Zanta, Jan. 26, 1936.)

4. "According to my own principles, I cannot fight
against Christianity; I can only work inside it by
trying to transform and convert it. A revolutionary
attitude would be much easier, and much more pleasant,
but it would be suicidal. So I must go step by step,
tenaciously." (Letter, Mar. 21, 1941.)

5. "I have got so many friends in good strategic
positions, that I feel quite safe about the future."
(Letter, Sept. 24, 1947.)

6. "Christ saves. But must we not hasten to add that
Christ, too, is saved by evolution?" (Le Christique,
1955.)

On Marxism

1. In 1948, Teilhard produced "Troia Chosei; Que Je
Vois" in which he again suggested the adoption of a
truly human faith, one that combined the "rational
force of Marxism" with the human warmth of
Christianity. (Ed. Note: Human warmth, love-love-love .
. . how often we hear this chant from the present day
liberals!)

2. When reflecting that the Catholic Church in the
U.S.A. was too stagnant, Teilhard found himself
dreaming (as he wrote in a letter to a friend) that "a
good dip into Marxism might start things moving again."

Appendix B

Scholars Comment on the Content of Teilhard de
Chardin's Teachings

1. Jacques Maritain (who himself in somewhat
sympathetic toward Modernist ideas) :

a) Accuses Teilhard of "perfect ignorance or
forgetfulness of St. Thomas Aquinas."

b) "What matters essentially in Teilhard himself in a
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Truly this EXPERIENCE was
incommunicable, although he never ceased looking for
ways to communicate it. But Teilhardism, the ideology
fabricated by the initiator and given circulation by
the press, presents itself as DOCTRINE.

c) Accuses the followers of Teilhard of inventing a
series of words which not only confuse people, but, if
taken seriously, transform Christ the Redeemer into
Christ the Evoluter.

d) "It in becoming tiresome to be told by enthusiastic
Teilhardians that anyone who finds his theories
impossible to reconcile with Christianity has not
understood him. Worse still, that Christian doctrine is
bound to adjust Itself to Teilhard's concept of
evolution." "Evolution explains nothing; it is
evolution that has to be explained, indeed proven."

2. Father Arrupe (Superior General of the Jesuits)
(1965)

"Teilhard was neither a philosopher nor a theologian
... had erroneous and ambiguous concepts. He was
obscure, changeable, immature, and not capable of
clearly expressing himself."

3. Paul Hallett -- "Those who quote Teilhard an if he
were a Father of the Church whose world-view is
destined to prevail, had better devote some serious
study to what he actually said. They will find that
Teilhardism is nothing but the pantheism of Spinoza in
new dress, that is, sentimentalized atheism."

4. Thomas Molnar

a) Teilhard slowly but steadily was slipping out of the
Christian religion into the adoration of the World. (In
Teilhard's own words: "What I ask of Christ is that He
be a Force which I can adore; I ask Him to be for me
the Universe.")

b) ...an unstable thinker, who substituted his
subjective intuitions to the Church's doctrine."

5. Dietrich vonHildebrand -- This eminent philosopher
characterized de Chardin as a superficial and terribly
confused thinker, a false prophet whose incredible
theories can in no way be reconciled with Catholic
thought. (Teilhard de Chardin, A False Prophet, by von
Hildebrand)

6. Msgr. Leo S. Schumacher, Ph.D. -- In the May 19,1979
issue of Twin Circle, he asked the question: Teilhard:
Saint or Heretic?, and concluded that de Chardin,
"contrary to many eulogists and admirers, really
intended to start a new religion and revamped Catholic
doctrines to suit his purpose . . . So he produced a
new Faith, a new religion which masquerades as the
Catholic Faith because it uses Catholic terminology.
The words m but the meaning very often is not. Thus,
many are deceived and go on to misinterpret Teilhard
even where he is very clear what he is up to."

7. Henri Rambaud (The Strange Faith of Teilhard de
Chardin) -- "Two things must be said: The first is that
it is laughable Jokes are the shortest ones -- to
present Teilhard as a paragon of obedience. He is
exactly the opposite, the very type of the irreducible
rebel under the outward guise of submissiveness. Rome
tells him again and again and again that he is
mistaken, but he does not change one single feature of
his mental universe. No one would have asked him to
renounce the whole of his thinking at one go. Such
things cannot be done to order. But he could at least
have made an effort, examined himself, sought a way of
reconciling his vision or what he thought was his
vision, with what Rome was telling him. This he hever
made the slightest attempt to do... At bottom, he was
not prepared to receive the words of life from the
Church, but to offer them to Her. His whole dream is to
act as the Church's midwife and to help the old Mother
to bring to birth the new faith She is unwittingly
carrying in her womb and which tomorrow will be the
religion of all Mankind."

8. Philip Trower (The Church Learned and the Revolt of
the Scholars) . . . (Teilhard) idolized power and
cunning: that he regarded Mussolini's invasion of
Abyssinia as the triumph of civilization; that he had
favorable words for Hitler and fascism as long as they
were winning;... Communism began to receive his
approval; ...he had a generally low opinion of black
Africans."......

Effects Of The Nouvelle Theologie (euphemism for
Modernism/Liberalism)

Because of de Chardin, his predecessors and his
disciples, seminaries are empty, convents are empty,
immorality has run rampant, the Holy Sacrifice is fast
disappearing and the practice of the Catholic Faith,
qualitatively and quantitatively, has diminished to an
unthinkable degree.......

For a number of years, we have had "diplomat" popes.
After Pope Paul VI, the Cardinals were looking for a
"Theologian" pope. Cardinal Luciani (Pope John Paul I)
was a theologian, and a conservative one at that,
having been taught by Cardinal Ottaviani. The Catholic
world (except for The Modernists) was overjoyed at his
election, and equally dismayed by his mysterious death.
His successor, the present pope, was chosen from the
background of a very traditional and anti-Communist
Church (in Poland) along with a history of profound
theological education. All in all, it promises well......

1) there was one man (as we stated in an earlier
chapter) , one shining light of a priest who knew all
along what was going on. His name was Father Reginald
Garrigou-Lagrange, a teacher at the Center of Thomistic
Study, the Angelicum in Rome. Father Garrigou-Lagrange,
besides enjoying the reputation as a faithful and
devout priest, was a highly regarded professor of
dogmatic theology. Among his many pupils he had a very
special one, whom he saw every day, and whom he helped
with his doctoral dissertation on the Mysticism of St.
John of The Cross. And this pupil's name? Karol
Wojtyla......

We rejoice to say, then, that the man who was trained
by the watch-dog of de Chardin's errors, and bona fide
champion of orthodoxy, is the very man who sits today
on the throne of St. Peter, Pope John Paul II."

Pax Christi, Pat
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.