Letters

Teilhard de Chardin (letter)

Grahame Fallon

Contents - Jun 2003 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Three Feasts: Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity - Peter Westmore Liturgy: John Paul's new encyclical on the Eucharist targets liturgical abuses - Michael Gilchrist AD2000 staff members awarded federation Centenary Medals - AD2000 News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Interview: Vatican II and the liturgy, 40 years later - Zenit News Service Events: Corpus Christi Procession - Brisbane, 22 June 2003 The environment: rediscovering the balanced Catholic perspective - Michael Casanova Laity: The role of lay Catholics in a time of crisis - Mary Ann Glendon Those dreadful old Catholic hymns? - Fr Fabian Duggan OSB The seal of confession: how a priest put his life on the line - Clem Lack Letters: Eucharistic encyclical and the priesthood (letter) - John Kelly Letters: Requirements fulfilled (letter) - John Young Letters: Four conditions (letter) - Fr G.H. Duggan SM Letters: Holy Orders (letter) - Francis Vrijmoed Letters: Brisbane Synod (letter) - Alistair Barros Letters: Catechetics (letter) Letters: Teilhard de Chardin (letter) - Grahame Fallon Letters: Latin Mass (letter) - Philip Robinson Letters: Death by 'nice blokes' (letter) - Lisa-Maree Letters: Abortion (letter) - Betty Griffin Letters: Prayer to Our Lady of Good Counsel (letter) - Marie E. Curtin Books: Culture and the Thomist Tradition : After Vatican II, by Tracey Rowland - Fr Peter Joseph STD (reviewer) Books: From Physics to Metaphysics, by Fr Francis J. Selman - Michael Casanova Books: The Story of Christianity : 2000 Years of Faith - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: Family in the Bible, edited by Richard H. Hess and M. Danial Carroll - Bill Muehlenberg (reviewer) Books: Our books are the cheapest! Reflection: Church scandals: focus on the message, not just the messengers - Fr Kevin Brannelly

Referring to Tess Livingstone's biography of Dr George Pell, former Archbishop of Melbourne and now of Sydney, Stuart Blackwood (May AD2000) focused on what he called her "eulogy" on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881-1955).

As Ms Livingstone recalled, before his ordination in Rome in 1966, Deacon Pell qualified for his Licentiate in Theology with a dissertation presenting "A Bird's Eye View of Teilhard de Chardin in Christology." But Mr Blackwood tells us nothing more about Ms Livingstone's book nor about Archbishop Pell's former and current views of Teilhard's Christology. Instead, he revives remarks that were made years ago to discredit the French Jesuit

Like the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), Teilhard was a mystic or "seer" in the Catholic tradition. As such, he too was "doomed to seem the stranger." For he had sensed what so many other brethren had not "seen" or sensed. That was the real presence and grace of God at the very heart or centre of every form of matter that God the Father had originally made for the incarnation of God the Son - through Him, in Him and for Him (Col 1:16).

St Paul distinguished only between spiritual and unspiritual people (1 Cor 2:14-15). Truly spiritual persons can appreciate the real and relative value of everything within the total "economy" of creation and re-creation or redemption. But unspiritual persons can accept nothing spiritual. They see it all as nonsense. That is why Jesus issued his own "monitum" or warning. "Do not give to dogs what is holy," he said, "nor cast your pearls before swine" (Mt 7:6).

A major problem is that Christian fundamentalists can't or refuse to see that the Prologue to the Gospel of John amounts to nothing less than a re-writing of the story of creation in the light of all that Jesus revealed to us. That is by way of his life, death and resurrection - his ascension from glory to glory from the beginning to the end of time, albeit by way of the Cross.

As Pope John Paul II said in the first words of his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979), the Redeemer of Man, Jesus Christ is also the centre of the universe and of its history. Teilhard's vision embraced the total Christ or what St Paul called the perfect man (Eph 4:13). That is destined to be all mankind and all creation centred upon the real presence and radiant gracefulness of Jesus.

GRAHAME FALLON
Woody Point, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 16 No 5 (June 2003), p. 15