Teilhard Research Articles

America's Teilhard: Christ and Hope in the 1960s by Susan Kassman Sack

Reviewed by: America's Teilhard: Christ and Hope in the 1960s by Susan Kassman Sack Laura Eloe (bio) Susan Kassman Sack, America's Teilhard: Christ and Hope in the 1960s (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 324 pages. When French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died in New York City in 1955, the nearly two hundred essays he wrote between 1916 and his death became the property of his long-time secretary and archivist Jeanne Mortier. Since she had already organized an international committee to oversee their publication, Le Phénomène humaine rolled off French presses later that year. Its translation into English (The Phenomenon of Man) appeared in the U.S. in 1959, beginning the availability of Teilhard's long-suppressed work in the country that was his home during his final exile. Twelve more volumes of Teilhard's essays followed, as did volumes of his correspondence with family and friends. In America's Teilhard: Christ and Hope in the 1960s, Susan Kassman Sack tells the story of the American reception of his work during the turbulent 1960s. A short introduction acquaints the reader with Teilhard and summarizes the Christological core of his thought. The rest of the book unfolds along a timeline between Teilhard's death in 1955 during the post-World-War-II consensus and the 1970s' increasing disillusionment with the war in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement. This timeline is divided into four subintervals: "The Threshold of Change, 1955−1960," "The Early Years, 1961−1964," "The Years of Hope, 1965−1967," and "The Bitter Years, 1968−1970." Sack follows American Catholics through their economic, educational, political, and social ascendancy, the elections and untimely deaths of Pope John XXIII and President John F. Kennedy, their reception [End Page 73] of Vatican II, their inspiration by Civil Rights and the counterculture, their disillusionment following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and their rebellion against capitalistic values, the Vietnam conflict, and Humanae Vitae. The American sense that knowledge of science would liberate humanity created an atmosphere of optimism just as Teilhard's writing was hitting American shores, and Teilhard's affirmation of the secular world and his positive stance toward scientific progress quickly made him popular. Conferences and symposia on his thought sprung up across the country, and the American Teilhard Association was founded. The number of worldwide publications about Teilhard grew steadily until 1968. Then the reception of his work was swept into society's turn away from secularism and mainstream churches and toward New Age religions and mysticism. Because most of his readers had never grasped the Christological grounding of Teilhard's thought, doubt about his optimistic worldview ensued. Publications about Teilhard steadily fell. Most of the works detailing how Teilhard was initially received were concerned with either Teilhard's context or his thought, and Sack surveys these with skill. After 1970, concern for his thought in context gradually increased, but by the time such projects became commonplace, Teilhard had moved into relative obscurity. As a reception history, Sack's project considers the subjectivity of the first U.S. audience to encounter his work in English. As good reception histories do, it makes the reader aware that what someone writes may well be different from how it is understood. The most substantial contribution of Sack's book is her linking of the missed Christological teleology of Teilhard's thought with his rise and fall in popularity in the U.S. As theologians tack back and forth between historical theology and reception history to fill in the picture of the Church in the modern era, Sack's book makes a valuable contribution to understanding the peculiar place America has in the broader historical and ecclesiological narrative. Two things weigh down this book. First, there are many errors. Some, like the misspelling of names (Marguerite Teillard-Chambon, Paul Troussard, and Henri Bergson) are irritating; others, like mixing up the names of Popes Pius and Paul, and incorrect years for Teilhard's ordination, the finishing of his doctorate, and the end of the Cold War, diminish its value as a source of accurate historical information. Second, the titles and...

ВЛИЯНИЕ ИГНАТИАНСКОЙ ДУХОВНОСТИ НА ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ КОНЦЕПЦИИ СИНТЕЗА НАУКИ И РЕЛИГИИ ПЬЕРА ТЕЙЯРА ДЕ ШАРДЕНА

The study provides an analysis of some factors that are often overlooked by Russian researchers, which however had significant influence on the evolution of the concept of synthesizing science and religion in the works of Catholic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Evidence of the significance of such factors can be found in his essays, personal notes and letters. First of all, the Chardin’s writings should be considered in the light of Ignatian spirituality, which guided the novice to search for new knowledge. Secondly, the idea of synthesizing scientific and religious insights in his writings can be adequately evaluated by taking into consideration the position of the Catholic church that was fighting against modernist theories of those times. Thirdly, the significance and the role of Spiritual Exercises by Ignatius of Loyola that influenced the mystic experience of the Catholic theologist should be taken into account. The above factors had considerable impact on Chardin’s theology, which has become one of the essential examples of the 20th century dialogue between science and religion.

Teilhard's Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution by Kathleen Duffy

Reviewed by: Teilhard's Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution by Kathleen Duffy Andrew Del Rossi Teilhard's Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution. By Kathleen Duffy, SSJ. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019. 176 pp. $20.00. In Teilhard's Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution, author Kathleen Duffy explores a new dimension of the person of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit priest and paleontologist who produced a synthesis of science and religion. By focusing on how Teilhard dealt with struggle throughout his life, Duffy demonstrates the power of Teilhard's spirituality while also conveying the relevance and importance of his work in the world today. Having diligently combed through Teilhard's letters and biographies, the author examines each of Teilhard's major life [End Page 96] challenges. She stresses that while Teilhard faced struggle and impasse throughout his life—with his physical and mental health, in his personal and professional relationships, with the church, and with the nagging ban on publishing—he sought to engage these challenges in ways that were unitive rather than divisive. Evolution was the foundational paradigm by which Teilhard understood the world; it taught him that growth requires struggle. Looking to Teilhard's creative approach for guidance, Duffy emphasizes the necessity of each person's participation in evolution's work by prayerfully, actively, and intentionally engaging the struggles of the world today. Duffy begins by revisiting Teilhard's 1919 essay, "The Spiritual Power of Matter" in which he encounters Matter, personified. In this mystical experience, he tells of an encounter with the Divine through matter. From this encounter, Teilhard understood that the journey to God and cosmic evolution were paths to wholeness that require struggle, for evolution's work is tireless and presses on despite the odds against it. What follows is an intimate look into Teilhard's engagement with struggle throughout the course of his life as a person, scientist, mystic, and friend. The author's style is particularly creative, as she overlaps details from Teilhard's story in the different chapters about various dimensions of his person, life, and work. She goes on to unpack his experiences as a believer and as a Jesuit who remained faithful to the church and to the world, despite the ways these relationships perpetually challenged him. Finally, Duffy produces her analysis of Teilhard's approach by breaking down his interior response to struggle while also incorporating his strategies from other experiences of impasse in his life. Beyond being an example of top-level scholarship, the author's work is thoughtful and pertinent on a personal and social level, for it wrestles with a difficult yet universal topic. Duffy offers readers a tangible method for dealing with struggle, derived from Teilhard's lived example of persistence and faithfulness to his inner vision. Her time, energy, and intentionality are present within every page. She demonstrates a [End Page 97] personal commitment not only to the work but more so to the prophetic message of Teilhard to cultivate greater consciousness of the divine in the world. In sharing her unique perspective as a molecular-physicist, the author articulates a perspective on Teilhard that is intricate, yet understandable and relatable. Duffy does not credit the exceptional poetic justice with which her writing evokes and animates the emotion and natural drama of Teilhard's journey, all the while maintaining her own unique voice. Teilhard's Struggle is an essential piece within the canon of Teilhardian literature, as well as within associated topics of the New Cosmology, Nouvelle théologie, and Christian spirituality. Duffy presents a systematic, professional, and pastoral approach to the life and work of Teilhard that is appropriate for undergraduates and graduate students because it addresses a ubiquitous topic that takes various forms of experience and understanding within each stage of life and growth. Likewise, the author's newest work belongs in the hands of every true scholar and fan of Teilhard alike, as it provides a living, breathing portrayal of a human being who yearned ceaselessly to participate in a greater reality. Teilhard's Struggle speaks to the heart of all those who desire to embrace evolution's work, endure the flames of struggle, and in that...

The Concept of Justice in People’s Lives According To Teilhard de Chardin Contributes To The Strengthening of The Character of The Younger Generation In Indonesia

This study aims to describe the life together in society according to Teilhard de Chardin. Then the researchers tried to reveal the value of justice in it. This research is a qualitative research. The basis of this research theory is the value of justice, while the object of study is life together in society according to Teilhard de Chardin. The methodical elements used are description, interpretation, and analysis-synthesis. The results achieved are as follows: the value of justice in the relations between individuals and society is closely related to human nature. Every individual has freedom in building relationships with others. The value of justice is reflected in the form of mutual respect, giving and receiving, and loving. Love becomes the energy for the creation of justice in society. Justice according to Teilhard de Chardin is justice towards oneself, other people or the community, and God. The value of justice can be used as a basis for strengthening the character of younger generation in Indonesia.

Jantzen and Sedlmayr: Diaphaneia—an impossible presence?

The immediacy of visual experience has always appeared as an indicator of verifiability of a presence. However, architecture as a bodily presence seems to be a reality that does not need verification. Yet there remains the issue of sacral architecture, which strives for the transcendent. What can be a medium in the experience of theophany?
 Sacral experience of Gothic architecture is very suitable for such observations. However, as I hope to demonstrate, only one theory seems to have actually approached the understanding of interconnections between the Holy Presence and the experience of it on an architectonic level. Precisely, it is Hans Jantzen’s (1881-1967) programmatic theory of “a diaphanic structure”.
 Term “diaphaneia” was first introduced by Jantzen in his article “Über den gotischen Kirchenraum” (1927). By that time the word had been used in near-esoteric circles (from Jacob Boehme to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and James Joyce).
 Jantzen’s seminal article is dedicated to the space of the Gothic cathedral, which he sees as ritual-liturgical. It is this multilayered space, he argues, that has a “diaphanic structure”. In his late texts (from the 1950 and 1960s) diaphaneia is explored as a universal way of keeping in view the horizon of the invisible presence. Sedlmayr's perception of Jantzen's ideas shows that optical diaphaneia should be complemented with somatic diaphaneia (through “baldachin”, in Sedlmayr's structuralist terms).
 The ultimate question is if diaphaneia is merely a means of “spiritualisation” of both the cathedral per se and architectural theory. Although architecture keeps silent, an architectural theorist speaks: using Derrida’s words, diaphaneia becomes diaphonie.

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, THE “SIX PROPOSITIONS,” AND THE HOLY OFFICE

AbstractBetween 1924 and 1937, the Jesuit Curia in Rome repeatedly placed restrictions on what Jesuit priest‐paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was allowed to write on those aspects of human origins that, in the view of the Curia, had theological as well as scientific aspects. In 2018, David Grumett and Paul Bentley published an account of the first of those restrictions, together with a previously undiscovered document associated with that restriction. This article corrects a relatively important error in their historical narrative, offers an alternative to their comments about the case, and concludes by embedding the events of 1924–1925 in a slightly larger history of Teilhard's relations with the Jesuit Curia and with the Holy Office. That larger narrative shows that, while Grumett and Bentley's account was mistaken about the involvement of the Holy Office in the case they discuss, it was not wrong about the concerns of that Congregation in questions of human origins.

TEILHARD, THE SIX PROPOSITIONS, AND HUMAN ORIGINS: A RESPONSE

AbstractRecent archival research has uncovered material that usefully explains why the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was required to remain in China for so long, despite assenting to the Six Propositions. However, the context in Rome, existing narrative evidence, and aspects of the archival evidence make it more likely than not that the Holy Office had a role in his silencing. Proposition 4 advocated monogenism, whereas Teilhard was developing a monophyletic understanding of human origins, which is consistent with recent attempts to situate Adam and Eve within an evolutionary account of these. The content of Proposition 4 exceeded existing magisterial teaching and requiring Teilhard's subscription to it suppressed legitimate theological debate.

Intimations of a spiritual New Age: III. Martin Heidegger's phenomenology of numinous/Being experience and the "Other Beginning" of a futural planetary spirituality

The phenomenology of numinous or Being-experience in the later Heidegger is the focus in this third in a series of papers on a group of independent figures— also including Jung, Reich, Toynbee, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil—who beginning in the crisis years of the 1930s envisioned versions of a futural “New Age” spirituality to address a globalizing materialism and its disenchantments—and so also creating a context for much of contemporary transpersonal and consciousness studies. A preliminary consideration of Heidegger in the contexts of transpersonal psychology, religious studies, the macro-histories of Toynbee and Sorokin, James on “pure experience,” and spirituality as intelligence must also lead to some reckoning with Heidegger’s disastrous initial involvement with National Socialism. Considered here in terms of a spiritual metapathology of narcissistic inflation/grandiosity, it was his way past this episode that led from the mid 1930s on into his radical critique of a globalizing technology of universal commodification and to an answering futural potential for a spiritual “Other Beginning” and “last god”—re-sacralizing humanity for the “guardianship” and “sheltering” of planet and life.

Patchy Anthropocene: Frenzies and Afterlives of Violent Simplifications

Patchy Anthropocene: Frenzies and Afterlives of Violent Simplifications

Searching for Spiritual Signatures in SETI Research

ABSTRACTThe Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) research assumes that we live in an intelligence-friendly universe. But do we live in a spiritual-friendly universe? We include the spiritual quest in a new multidisciplinary approach to SETI. In a thought experiment, we consider two types of alien civilizations by including a Spiritual factor in the Drake Equation. Using the analogy of planetary biomarkers and the concept of noosphere introduced by Teilhard de Chardin, we propose two spiritual markers that could evidence the presence of a noosphere in an exoplanet.

O PROGRESSO TECNOCIENTÍFICO E O DESAFIO DE CONSTRUIR UMA EDUCAÇÃO PARA O FUTURO:

Vivemos em tempos difíceis, complexos e críticos. Mais do que uma época de mudanças profundas estamos presenciando uma mudança de época, em que os valores culturais, sociais, políticos, religiosos e técnicos trazidos pela tradição parecem se liquidificar. Tal constatação desafia-nos à construção de um novo mundo, uma sociedade mais justa e solidaria, educando hoje as nossas gerações futuras. Partindo destas considerações, o presente artigo, de cunho teórico e bibliográfico, consiste num exercício de aproximação e diálogo entre as obras de três pensadores que reivindicam, a partir de diferentes referências conceituais, um compromisso ético para a ciência e a educação, a partir de valores que respeitam o ser humano em sua dignidade, os seres vivos no seu habitat e a terra na sua beleza. O texto inicia com uma introdução ao pensamento de Teilhard de Chardin e a chamada “revolução da consciência”. A seguir consideramos V.R.Potter e a sua bioética como “ponte para o futuro” e a perspectiva da “bioética global” e avançamos com Edgar Morin, com o seu “pensamento complexo” e a busca de uma “ciência com consciência”. Finalizamos apresentando suas contribuições para a educação do futuro, numa perspectiva esperançosa que busca reconciliar ciência, ética e vida.
 Palavras-chave: Educação Superior. Bioética. Consciência. Pensamento Complexo. Educação do Futuro.

Indeed, Quantum Measurement May Just Play a Part in Human Brain Dynamics That Together with the Soul May Affect Human Perception and Consciousness Development

In the paper titled “Quantum Measurement, Consciousness and the Soul: A New, Alternative Position” by Werbos, 2018a, he concludes about the problem of quantum measurement: “All of this physics does not tell us much about consciousness or the soul…” and he suggests that the answers may be found in other areas of science, like neuroscience and neural networks for example. Let us begin by extending these areas to cognitive science, systems neuroscience, non-linear system dynamics, mathematics, and classical and quantum physics. I will take a stand that supports the view that some form of quantum theory may facilitate our understanding of consciousness, mind, soul, and spiritual values-based decision-making. The most relevant authors and theories that I will briefly explore are Henry P. Stapp’s Quantum Interactive Dualism (QID) (Stapp, 2009a; Stapp, 2006) and Walter Freeman’s and Robert Kozma’s Cinematic Theory of Cortical Phase Transitions (Kozma & Freeman, 2016), where both theories, in different ways, serve as a foundation for the understanding of how the brain creates knowledge and meaning for intentional action and value-based decision-making. Finally, it is proposed that Stapp’s contribution together with Freeman’s and Kozma’s views in conjunction with the work of Giuseppe Vitiello can be regarded as sound and complementary platforms to build upon the big picture of consciousness, together with a platform of noospheres, similar yet different than the ones described by Teilhard de Chardin (de Chardin, 1966).

Theology, Evolution, and the Figural Imagination: Teilhard de Chardin and His Theological Critics

Teilhard de Chardin has been criticized by both Roman Catholic (Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Dietrich von Hildebrand) and Protestant (David Lane and Jurgen Moltmann) theologians for allegedly promulgating a heterodox, modernist version of Gnosticism that substitutes a naturalistic account of evolution for the supernatural Christian story of redemption in Christ, departs from scriptural and classical theological norms, gives primacy to scientific over theological reasoning, and articulates a vision of pure immanence. Teilhard’s theological integration of salvation and evolution in The Human Phenomenon and other works is, however, grounded in an implicitly figural interpretation of history that is both scriptural and classical in inspiration. Reading Teilhard’s early essay, ‘Cosmic Life,’ through the studies of Erich Auerbach, Leonard Goppelt, and Tibor Fabiny on figural interpretation demonstrates that Teilhard describes evolutionary history as a typological anticipation for the coming Christ, thus refuting misconstruals of his theology as gnostic, heterodox, naturalistic, and immanentalist.

Capitalism vs. Creation Spirituality Resolve (C.S.R.): A Tete-a-tete of Two Cultural Consciousness

This research work argues that religious conviction is contributory to the making of the culture of Capitalism in the West. This was presented by annotating Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion. There, the study presents Capitalism’s cultural values influencing the behavior and attitude of the modern man. From here, the paper establishes how the values of Capitalism, in the global extent, became the main culprit in the destruction of the ecological system. To see both sides of the story, the paper examines how capitalists respond to this environmental crisis created mainly by them. At this point, the paper argues why the ‘method’ of most economic experts, including those of the philanthrocapitalists, fails in resolving the problem of sustainability vis-à-vis environmental wellbeing. After discoursing on what Capitalism has done and the illeffects it has produced, the paper presents a dialectic between Capitalism and Creation spirituality. There it argues why Creation spirituality, reflected from the different faith traditions, becomes the appropriate cultural consciousness that serves as antidote to the environmental malaise caused by Capitalism. While a synthesis between the two opposing values of each spheres could be made using a dialectical framework, the paper opts instead to take the position of Creation spirituality. The paper points out that the way to counteract the “colonizing” position of Capitalism is for religion to take charge. In the end, the paper argues that only in paradigm-shift where the position of Creation spirituality is taken, that genuine solution can be achieved in this pressing environmental crisis. Lastly, the paper recommends to utilize the principles and values of Creation spirituality via incorporation of it in religious academic curricula. Likewise, the study bids the same in the wider sphere of interreligious relations and communications that religious leaders, preachers and teachers should consider as a course of action to take. ReferencesBakan, J. (2004). The Corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power. NY: Free Press.Bhaktivedanta Vedabase. Retrieved from www.vedabase.com/en/bg/11Bowker, J. (2015). Beliefs that changed the world: The history and ideas of the great religions. London, United Kingdom: Quercus Publishing.Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A. (2008). Business and society: Ethics, sustainability and stakeholder management. Cengage Learning.Chief Seattle. (2000). The speech of Chief Seattle. Carlisle, MA: Applewood Books.Clayton, P. (2004a). “Panentheism in metaphysical and scientific perspective”, in In whom we live and move and have our being: panentheistic reflections on God’s presence in a scientific world, P. Clayton and A. Peacocke (eds.), Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, pp. 249-264.de Chardin T. (1975). The human phenomenon. NY: Harper and Row.Fox, M. (1983). Original blessing. Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company.Fox, M. (ed.) (1987). Hildegard de Bingen’s book of divine works: With letters and songs. Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company.Friedman, M. (2002). Capitalism and freedom (40th Anniversary Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of communicative action vol. 1: Reason and rationalization of society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Horkheimer, M. (1982). Critical theory selected essays. New York: Continuum Pub.IPerceptive: Ibn-Arabi Quotes. Retrieved from https://iperceptive.com/authors/ibn-arabi-quotes.htmlJung, C. G. (2006). The undiscovered self. New York, NY: New American Library.Knight, K. (2017). The Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. Retrieved from http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1065.htmMarx, K. (1990) [1867]. Capital, Volume I. London: Penguin Classics.Nhat Hanh, T. (1999). Going home: Jesus and Buddha as brothers. New York, NY: Penguin Group.O’ Murchu, D. (2004). Quantum theology: Spiritual implications of the new physics (Revised Ed.). NY: The Crossroads PublishingCompany.Pope Francis (2015). Laudato Si: On care for our common home. Rome. Rasmussen, L. (2005). Earth community, earth ethics. Makati, Philippines: St. Paul’s.Rieff, D. (2015). The Reproach of hunger: Food, justice, and money in the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.Smith, A. (1977). The wealth of nations: An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.The Meister Eckhart Site. Retrieved from https://www.ellopos.net/theology/eckhart_in-creatures.htmlWeber, M., & Kalberg, S. (2013). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of Capitalism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Quantum Measurement, Consciousness, and the Soul: a New, Alternative Position

This paper presents a new position on the fundamental questions about quantum measurement, consciousness, and soul, which contradicts at least one sacred assumption of every major player in today’s debates. It starts from a first person viewpoint, which may be characterized as Rational German existentialism, in the spirit of Goethe, Von Neumann, Heisenberg, and Raiffa. On that foundation, it rejects the obsolete concepts of primal ontology, supports the quest for a unified objective mathematical model of what underlies all of our experience, and concludes that we should simply not take a rigid position at this time on three possible types of “theory of everything” (1) the “multiverse” theory, according to which, we live in a “multiverse,” an infinite dimensional space like the proposals of Everett, Wheeler, and David Deutsch, or a similar infinite-dimensional realistic theory; (2) hard core Einsteinian theories, assuming a finite dimensional cosmos, which may well be salvageable mathematically in light of new work on quantum measurement, but which would require understanding ourselves as an odd sort of “shadows of Plato’s Cave”; (3) something much weirder, like random graphs, “digital universe” or cosmos as a vast neural network (of what telos?). It rejects the idea that quantum measurement has any connection to the emergent phenomena of consciousness or the soul. Further work building on this foundation rejects the classic formulation of noosphere from De Chardin and Vernadsky, but proposes that an entire species of noospheres permeating our cosmos is plausible under (1) and (2), and may in fact be the most plausible basis for explaining veridical weird experience for those of us who find it inescapable.

Teilhard de Chardin, human evolution and "Piltdown Man".

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit paleontologist, priest, and philosopher. In the figures published in articles in 1943 and 1951, he attempted to draw a "plausible schematic reconstruction of the natural connections between fossil men" and a "phyletic composition of the human group". I draw attention to Teilhard's reference to Eoanthropus ("Piltdown Man") in small print in his figure that was first printed in 1943. Most suspiciously, there is no reference to this (supposedly important) genus in the associated text, nor is there any reference whatsoever to "Piltdown Man" in the article published in 1951. Even as early as January 1913, Teilhard may have been aware that "Piltdown Man" was a hoax or joke, artificially associating a human cranium with a modified orangutan mandible. A new suspect is Edgar Willett (rather than Charles Dawson). Teilhard may have been an advisory accomplice in a joke that went seriously wrong.

La justificación científica y filosófica del respeto hacia la naturaleza: Teilhard de Chardin, Arne Naess y el Papa Francisco

Tres modelos de sensibilidad ecológico-social son visibles hoy en relación con la naturaleza. El primero, el más atávico, consiste en la indiferencia instintiva. El segundo, algo más elaborado, en su conservación utilitaria. Y el tercero, el más consistente, en el respeto esencial por ella. Y ahí, en el vértice de la jerarquía humana pensante; aislados, pocos, románticos e iluminados, encontramos a unos cuantos personajes que tratan, machaconamente, de expandir un «extraño» mensaje entre el amasijo tecnocientífico actual; el del ecologismo comprometido. Su imperativo es inapelable: somos el único ser vivo del planeta dotado de suficiente autoconsciencia y, por eso mismo, de exigible responsabilidad. Sobre todo, en el caso de que existieran argumentos suficientes que enlacen nuestra estirpe con el resto de los seres vivos de la Tierra. Y ese es el objetivo de este artículo. Teilhard de Chardin, Arne Naess y el papa Francisco son tres de los mejores ejemplos de quienes han contribuido a la justificación científica y filosófica del respeto debido a la Naturaleza. En ellos, centraremos nuestro análisis.

American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow: Building Churches for the Future, 1925–1975 by Catherine R. Osborne

Reviewed by: American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow: Building Churches for the Future, 1925–1975 by Catherine R. Osborne Jillian Plummer Catherine R. Osborne, American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow: Building Churches for the Future, 1925–1975 ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 288 pages. Catherine Osborne's American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow historicizes one of the most dramatic changes of the U.S. Catholic Church in the late twentieth century: the movement away from medieval-inspired churches to shopping mall chapels, churches with ecumenical spaces, and floating congregations. And yet as Osborne shows, this movement away from medieval architecture was also about new theology. Catholic modernists "claimed the future of churches as vital to a renewed ecclesiology (or theory about the nature of the Church), and as critically connected to a renewed eschatology (the theology of the redemption of creation)" (4). Through an analysis of buildings and architectural plans as well as through the voices of those people who imagined, built, and used these spaces, Osborne argues that how American Catholics imagined their churches intersected with how they envisioned the future. Across six chapters, Osborne suggests that American Catholics' engagement with evolutionary science, modern architectural trends, and new theology espoused before and simultaneously with Vatican II fueled conversations about the parish of the future. She focuses this analysis on the period between 1925 to 1975. Most visions for the future church were not built in the period before the Second Vatican Council. Yet in the early twentieth century, Osborne shows how American Catholics borrowed images from architectural discourse, which used biological metaphors, and language from the [End Page 97] theology of Henri de Lubac, S.J., and Yves Congar, O.P., which characterized the Church as "living" and "organic," to discuss futuristic churches. By the mid-twentieth century, Osborne illustrates how the availability of reinforced concrete opened up new possibilities for architects who imagined constructing churches that might unify a congregation during Mass and also focus a congregation's attention on the altar (80, 100, 102). In the second half of the book, Osborne details how American Catholics used the eschatology elaborated by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., Harvey Cox, and the Second Vatican Council to experiment with where the celebration of Mass took place (14). For example, she discusses how the theology articulated in the Second Vatican Council's "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World" (Gaudium et Spes) and Harvey Cox's The Secular City inspired American Catholics' new visions for urban parishes in the mid-1960s. Encouraged by this theology that blurred the divide between sacred and secular space, American Catholics attempted to increase the visibility of the Church in the inner-city among marginalized populations. Other Catholics, influenced by this same theology, envisioned creating shared spaces that might foster ecumenism. Yet by the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially with the implementation of the Council's "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy" (Sacrosanctum Concilium) and its continued reinterpretation among the faithful, American Catholics began to raise more radical questions about what exactly a church ought to be. In order to discuss this post-conciliar period of uncertainty, Osborne focuses her attention on American Catholics who formed "non-territorial parishes." The community of John XXIII in Oklahoma City, for instance, decided not to construct buildings in order to avoid debt so that they had more freedom to serve their local community and worship in different locations across the city (212, 213). While Osborne alludes to the conflict among American Catholics in the period after the Council, future scholarship will more comprehensively reveal the uneasy reaction by some Catholics to these futuristic churches. One of the most impressive feats of the book is Osborne's wide-ranging analysis of American Catholic modernist architecture across the United States. She considers futuristic churches from coast to coast: from the construction of the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona, to sanctuary renovations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over the course of this book, readers learn that discussions about the Church's future in relationship to their worship spaces transpired among American Catholics in seminaries, in convents, in the pews, and in non-territorial parishes...

Ideas of the cosmism philosophy natural-scientific direction within media space and social-economic space

The article examines the influence of cosmism ideology and its orientation at principles of total interconnection, unity, obligatory coordination of human activity with the principle of world integrity on the formation of media space and socio-economic space of the information society. It displays that inwardness within the formation of humanity unity has been emphasised by the cosmism representatives Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Fedorov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Vladimir Vernadsky, Edouard Le Roy, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who manifested the world view position considering human, their past, present, and future through the lens of correlation with space. The research distinguishes the crucial role of cosmism ideology in development of modern media culture. It highlights the fact that, within the information society where formation of network communication systems provides the opportunity to shape global interaction systems enabling integrity of world culture or any national culture, priorities of cooperation and mutual aid ought to become dominant for mass media activity regardless of the civilisations, nations, regions, communities they represent. Policy in the sphere of media culture must be directed at the operation of communication network in the interchange mode, prevention of the situation when demassification of mass media may lead to localising, closing cultures of certain ethnic or religious groups.

From Newman through Teilhard and Beyond

From Newman through Teilhard and Beyond Laura Eloe (bio) Nihil recipitur in aliquo nisi secundum proportionem recipientis. —I Sent. 8,5,3C Thomas aquinas reminds us in the first book of his commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences that nothing is received except according to the manner of the receiver. John Henry Newman's thought is no exception. How it was received by twentieth-century minds depended in part on the sort of minds that were the fertile ground in which his thought was planted. The purpose of this article is to investigate one of those minds, that of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Jesuit priest, soldier, mystic, theologian, philosopher, and world-renowned paleontologist. One of Teilhard's biographers notes that "no book was more seminal to Teilhard's thinking than Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,"1 and the fact that Newman influenced the young Jesuit is widely reported in both the scholarly and popular literature on Teilhard. Considerably less has been written on the particularities of that influence; this study seeks to address some of those particularities. Careful reading of the primary sources makes it clear that Newman's thought was not simply appropriated by Teilhard. Nor was it only Newman's ideas that would influence the soldier-priest who was destined to become a lightning rod during the stormy years when the Church2 struggled to understand and articulate its relationship with "the world"; Newman's life and struggles found a home in Teilhard's reflections as well. This article's first task is to give a brief account of Teilhard's life and writing in order to paint a picture of the sort of mind that was encountering Newman's life and thought. The second task is to discuss particular aspects of Newman's life that captured Teilhard's imagination and inspired the sort of work he would do. The third task is to address how some of Teilhard's [End Page 51] ideas show compelling similarities to Newman's ideas, which were copied into Teilhard's war-time journal and about which he wrote to his cousin; some of these ideas received Teilhard's full assent, while others provided inspiration in some adapted form. Finally, this article will remark on how Newman's ideas as engaged by Teilhard are receiving renewed attention in our twenty-first-century context. teilhard's life and writing Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. was, according to those who knew him, complex and fascinating. He was born 1 May 1881 in the family home in Sarcenat, a small village northwest of Clermont-Ferrand, the capital of the Auvergne province of France. His mother, Berthe-Adèle, was a deeply pious woman who supervised her children's catechetical instruction and taught them to read. His father, Emmanuel, ran several estates but had time to teach the children Latin and direct their reading in the years before they left for secondary school. He was well-connected to the world of English naturalists, and he encouraged in his children a love of natural history and of making collections of natural objects.3 In the shelter of the self-sufficient society of his childhood family, Teilhard was immersed in the oneness of spirit and matter that would characterize his life's work. "On a wall in the drawing room at Sarcenat," noted another of his biographers, "hung a picture representing Christ offering his heart to the world. From the window of the same room one looked out on a vista of volcanic hills. These two, the Sacred Heart and the firm earth, molded Pierre and set the pattern his life would follow."4 In April of 1892, just before his eleventh birthday, Teilhard left his family to begin his secondary education as a boarder at the École Libre de Notre-Dame de Mongré in Villefranche-sur-Saône, nearly one hundred miles from home. The Jesuit-run school was a leader in France for education in the natural sciences, especially physics. The Jesuits claimed to teach their students the "sanctifcation of science through religion and the service of religion by science, a relatively advanced formula at that time," but the primary...