Even though the following report deals with Catholic theologians, it reaches far beyond just the Catholic Church and can apply to many other Christian denominations. The Modernism and Nouvelle theology which has permeated the thinking of some in the Catholic Church is based on heretical thinkers, and is influenced by primitive Church heresies, the Alchemy and Kabbalah of the Renaissance, and modernist Protestant thinkers of both earlier and more current centuries. This is documented in Parts 5, 6 and 7 of this “Wake Up Catholics” series. (See "Related Links" below)
MEET THE NOUVELLE THEOLOGIANS
By Betsy Kraus
The following summaries are brief sketches of some leading Nouvelle Theologians. The hope is to shed some light on their particular teachings to further aid in understanding Nouvelle Theology. In addition, the purpose of discussing some of these theologians individually is so that others might identify the teachings of current theologians following in the footsteps of the Nouvelle theologians. These sketches address only what these Nouvelle theologians believed and or taught.
The most prominent of the Nouvelle theologian clergy include Karl Rahner S.J (1904-1984), Teilhard de Chardin S. J (1881-1955), Hans Kung S.J (1928-), Edward Schillebeeckx S.J (1914-2009), Henri de Lubac S.J (1896-1991), Hans Urs von Balthasar S. J.(1905-1988), Joseph Marechal, S.J (1878-1944), Jean Danielou, S.J (1905-1974), Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P. (1895-1990), Yves Congar, O.P (1904-1995), Joseph Ratzinger (1927- ), and Cardinal Walter Kasper (1933- ). There were two groups within the movement, one called "Aggiornamento", the more radical of the two including Kung and Schillebeeckx, and the other called "Communio" which included de Lubac, Kasper, and Ratzinger. According to Professor Orlando Fedeli’s research, even Father Garrigou LaGrange was a part of the movement as he worked with the Nouvelle Theologians in France at the Le Saulchoir School of Theology in France.
The Divine, Emanating World "Kenosis"
Before looking at the individual theologians’ teachings, a brief description of Kenosis is in order, as it had a profound influence on some Nouvelle thinkers. Kenosis was briefly mentioned in Part 6, where it was stated that Pope Pius XII condemned it and called it wicked. Kenosis is a mixture of Cabalism, Gnosticism, and the heresies of Jacob Boehme, Sergie Bulgakov, Hegel, and others. The doctrine of Kenosis means literally the "emptying of God". In other words, God and Jesus emptying their Divinity to each other and creation. Understanding Kenosis will assist in understanding some of the conclusions of the Nouvelle theologians. The following points on Kenosis are the observations of Professor Fedeli. (Source #2 and #11)
In this kenotic process, in the sphere of Divinity, the Creation would develop, exactly as the Gnostics have said, by a sort of decadence or expoliation of the infinite Divinity in the finite being. Just as in God, the divine Person proceeded kenotically this way, on His turn, God would have created the world kenotically, emptying himself in it.
Such theologians from the New Theology – from Karl Rahner to Hans Urs von Balthasar, made Cardinal by John Paul II, accepted, more clearly than the others, the Gnostic doctrine of Kenosis, whether to explain the life of Divinity in a theosophical way, or whether to explain Creation and Redemption. [Theosophy: Esoteric Gnosticism. Gnosticism: Salvation through secret knowledge and personal religious, "lived" experience. Matter is evil, spirit is good. Ed.]
The Deified World
Love as the Kenotic doctrine, is like the one preached by Buddhism: searching to emptiness, a metaphysical suicide that prepares all, renounces all, self-demolitions. Being truly poor would claim the annihilation of the being itself. The one who is, by the simple fact of being, would be rich. The Theology of Liberation, deep inside, looks for an ontological [being] liberation. As the Gnosis, it is an anti-metaphysical revolution. And, to von Balthasar, this condition of receptivity gives a feminine character to the Son.
Such as the Son behaves…towards the Father’s will, so the Church and the Christian towards the Son’s life. The effusion of this "God’s seed" (I Jo III, 9) in the midst of the world is the most intimate event in history….here the term "God’s seed", which Saint John uses to refer, analogically, to the sanctifying grace is literally interpreted as "God’s seed in the world", something emanated from God, and not as the sanctifying grace in the soul of the righteous.
The Gnostic, Sergei N. Bulgakov, was warmly welcomed in the colloquies of the modernist theologians when coming to the Western world. [Fr Bulgakov was condemned for heresy by the Eastern (Russian) Orthodox Church. Ed.],
For Bulgakov the created world is an emanation of Divinity, as preached by Gnosis.
Von Balthasar, as other Modernist theologians, admitted the influence of Hegel’s and Bulgakov’s doctrine about the Kenosis in the Triune God, the Kenosis of God creating the world, and, finally, the Kenosis of Christ, at cross, as a means of redemption. Kenotic doctrine accepted the Protestant and liberal theology of the 19th century, which inspired Modernism. Von Balthasar said that he accepted the core of Bulgakov's Kenotic doctrine.
That would allow all humanity to be saved collectively by Jesus Christ, becoming one single man –
humanity with Him. That would explain how each singular man, by the fact of being conceived, and only this fact, not taking into account his works, would be saved, only for being a man. (Source#2 and #11)
The Lineamenta issued by The Synod of the Bishops’ XIV Ordinary General Assembly on the Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World, referred to the "mercy displayed in Christ’s Kenosis". (Part III, #28 of the document. See Source #18.) It is worth repeating that Kenosis was proclaimed wicked by Pope Pius XII. The Kabbalah, which speaks about Kenosis without reservation, presents Tiferet as the sixth sphere and the suffering servant. Tiferet represents the beauty of Mercy and Compassion.
Finally, Hegel’s dialectic of the Trinity can also be perceived in Kenosis. He taught that there is a constant dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis – again and again) within the Trinity, and even the Trinity is evolving and "becoming". The Trinity, creation, and mankind are all "becoming". The term "fully human" must surely mean "fully deified". This is why the dialectical consensus is so important in education and in groups. Each new consensus or synthesis creates the platform for another evolving dialectic, building higher and higher to bring about "Spiritual Communism".
The Theologians
Condemned Book
Henri Cardinal de Lubac: de Lubac was a peritus at Vatican II. He professed that there was no separation between nature and grace. He believed that man, by his very human nature, possesses supernatural or Sanctifying Grace. The book "Le Mystere du surnaturel", (The Mystery of the Supernatural), written by de Lubac regarding this concept, was condemned by the Church. His concept was the opposite of the teachings of the Apostles and St. Thomas’ teaching that proclaims Grace as a gift from God. The Council of Orange, in the year of 529, condemned the concept of grace naturally occurring in human nature, rather than a gift of God. The Council of Orange stated: "… If justice is through nature, then Christ died in vain. For the law was already here, and it did not justify; nature, too, was already present, and it did not justify..." [Can.21] (Emphasis, Ed.) (1) Was de Laubac aware but able to dismiss the Council of Orange’s teaching on nature and grace due to a Modernist precept of "Vital Immanence" in the world? Vital immanence means, as God is in matter, man must be a part of God. Luther’s Theologia Crucis also emphasized God’s Immanence, in the form of divine grace in the created order. [Layton] As stated in an earlier report, such ideas allow the world and everything in it to become "sacramental and sacred". Pius XII stated the following in Humani Generis when describing some errors of Modernism: "Others destroy the gratuity of the supernatural order, since God, they say, cannot create intellectual beings without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision." (2)
Can one see in de Lubac work’s on nature and grace, a kind of incarnational or Kenotic view for creation and mankind? Such a view might possibly mean that at the moment of the hypostatic union of Jesus’s divine nature with His human nature, and with the idea of Kenosis in mind, all mankind and the world became somehow endowed with Divinity, as Jesus sacrificed his Divinity by emptying it into the world to save all creation.
Did de Lubac’s concepts set the stage for other assumptions, including the deification of man and the inherent "Dignity of Man"? To the Modernist, the dignity of man did not mean that man was created in the image and likeness of God and called to be an adoptive son of God through Baptism. To the Modernist, the "Dignity of Man" means that man is God. [Fedeli] Cardinal de Lubac also drew on Neoplatonism to recover a sense of mystery, emphasizing the "upward" direction of the Natural world. (Man united to the absolute being through cosmic world evolution via the dialectic?) Does any of this tie into the concepts of Teilhard de Chardin and Robert Muller regarding the spiritual evolution of the world?
Henri de Lubac deduced that Jesus and the Church were Sacraments. The Christian Community, as Church, was thus a Sacrament, and anyone coming into contact with these communities was truly in contact with the presence of the risen Lord. It is true that where two or more are gathered in His name, He is there, but does that make the Community a Sacrament? In de Lubac’s thinking, through the Church, humanity is "recapitulated" into Christ bringing along all of creation. Because the community "does" the sacramental liturgy, this assists in making liturgy an "evolving process". [Recapitulate: to restate, to summarize, to give new form or direction. Ed.].
In addition, de Lubac had a rather different approach to Eucharistic Ecclesiology. "He considered the Church as ‘Eucharist’. The primary significance of the Eucharist lies not in real presence or sacrifice, but in its unifying effect. Thus, it is impossible to speak of a true Eucharist if there is no unity in the Church. Furthermore, this unity is forged through suffering with the Church, since the Eucharist memorializes Christ’s Passion. Thus, the sacrificial significance of the Eucharist points toward unity since the Church is offered again and again "for a greater, more united Church…The unity achieved through the Eucharist is not simply for the Church’s spiritual enjoyment: ‘True Eucharistic piety, therefore, is no devout individualism . . . With one sweeping, all-embracing gesture, in one fervent intention it gathers together the whole world… There is, thus, an assumed unity within humanity to be found in the fact that God made humanity in his own image. This image does not stem from below in the humanity of Adam. Instead, ‘it is one and the same image stamped from above identically upon each which makes all one; in other words, the principle of unity lies above, it is not to be identified with any of the particular images here below.’" (3) Questions regarding de Lubac’s Eucharistic Ecclesiology might be: what is his definition of Church and of unity?
Just as a refresher, the Catholic Church teaches that a Sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. If these theologians think the world is a Sacrament then wouldn’t that mean the world "gives grace"? Liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff, believed, along with de Chardin, that matter was a carrier of a divine reality and was therefore sacramental. It was asserted that Maurice Blondel, who exerted great influence among the Modernists, including de Lubac, considered the world to be deified. The Church teaches that Sanctifying grace is conferred through Baptism and the Sacraments, but if the whole world is assumed to be a "Sacrament" and "deified" how many false conclusions can be drawn from that premise?
A Christian Must be a Mystic
KARL RAHNER: Father Karl Rahner was another Nouvelle Theologian called by John XXIII to be a peritus to Vatican II. He was summoned despite the fact that, in 1962, his Jesuit supervisors had placed him under Rome's pre-censorship. This meant that he could not publish or lecture without advance permission. Rahner, along with Joseph Marechal, were Transcendental Thomists. Their doctrines rejected realism. According to Fr. Robert Henle, S. J., transcendental Thomism is a "Christianized version of German idealism" (including Gnosticism) and has no philosophical right to be called Thomism. German Idealism professed that the reality of an object did not exist as a thing, but only as a subjective perception of one’s consciousness. The properties of a thing existed only in the mind. This movement was led by Kant, Hegel, Fitche, and Schelling. In subscribing to the evolutionary view, Rahner thought that the world allows us to consider that humanity is nothing but the latest stage of the self-transcendence of matter. [Wikipedia]
Rahner incurred the condemnation of Pope Paul VI in the encyclical Mysterium fidei
with regards to the theory of "Transignification", and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Rahner changed "Transubstantiation" to "Transignification" which meant that bread and wine no longer became the Body and Blood of Christ. Rahner said the meaning of the Bread and Wine changed but not the matter. Might that idea reflect de Lubac’s Eucharistic Ecclesiology? Two separate surveys were taken in 2008 on the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Tragically, one survey reported that only 30% of Catholics believed in the Real Presence, while another survey put those who believed at 57%. Prior to Paul VI, Pius XII condemned Rahner’s theories in Humani Genesis. "Some even say that the doctrine of transubstantiation, based on an antiquated philosophic notion of substance, should be so modified that the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist be reduced to a kind of symbolism, whereby the consecrated species would be merely efficacious signs of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate union with the faithful members of His Mystical Body." [Emphasis, Ed.] (4)
In addition, Rahner thought that grace is not something other than God, not some celestial 'substance,' but God Himself. He believed that "grace is a permanent modification of human nature in a supernatural existential (a phrase borrowed from Heidegger)… For this reason, Rahner denies the possibility of a state of pure nature (natura pura, human existence without being involved with grace), which according to him is a counterfactual." (5) This concept seems to be in keeping with de Lubac’s concept of Nature and Grace, so Rahner, too, might have rejected the Church’s teaching at the Council of Orange. If God is in us by nature and we are part God, we are, therefore, deified. Wouldn’t that then mean that "The Dignity of Man" is beyond questioning, no matter how base or evil the character? Rahner’s teachings also allowed for Christians to learn from other religions, even atheistic humanism, because Rahner’s concept of God's grace is and can be operative in them. Was this concept of the deification of man to become a basis for ecumenism and unity? Fr. M. Edmund Hussey, an apparent admirer of Rahner, indicated in his Idea of Christianity, that the Second Vatican Council was much influenced by Rahner’s theology and his understanding of Catholic faith.
Speyr and von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasar: Von Balthasar was not a contributor at the Council, however he was appointed by Pope Paul to the International Theological Commission in 1969. Karl Rahner was also appointed to this Commission. "Saint Thomas’ theology was either hi-jacked, misrepresented, or completely dismissed during and after the Council. For example new theologians such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, who became popular after the Council, butchered Saint Thomas. Balthasar took many of his ideas from a Jesuit… theologian by the name of Erich Przywara and combined them with ideas from Karl Barth, and the delusional Adrienne von Speyr, who criticized the Angelic doctor after having one of her alleged "visions’. In the alleged vision Christ supposedly told her how deficient St. Thomas was in his spirituality! She also criticized Aquinas’ intellect, ‘Wherever possible he always contemplates things that fit in the work he is doing at the time. Here, too, he is the one who leads God, as it were, rather than allowing himself to be led by God. He lacks a certain magnanimity’." (6)
Most significantly, Balthasar presented Trinitarian views which relegated the Trinity to the Hegelian dialectic of contradiction. Balthasar’s dialectic of the Trinity was basically the same dialectic proposed by Anton Gunther (1783-1863)), whose work was placed on the Index for teaching errors of the Trinity, the nature of man, the Creation, and the relation of faith to knowledge. The Council of Florence (1141) defined all the Church’s teaching on the Trinity, making all Trinitarian heresies anathema. Balthasar’s "Theo-drama" apparently reflected some of the philosophy of the Kabbalistic and heretical mystic, Jacob Boehme. Balthasar contended that contradiction is a part of truth. He also developed his Trinitarian theories partially on the gnostic work of the heretic, Sergei Bulgakov. According to Orlando Fideli, von Balthasar accepted Bulgakov’s teaching that the created world is an emanation of Divinity, as preached by Gnosis. (Pantheism). In addition, Fedeli said that cabalistic notions transmitted by Jacob Boehme, adopted by Hegel, romantic disciples, and gnostic theologians included Sergev, Bulgakov and Urs von Balthasar.
Von Balthasar describes the pouring out of the blood and water from Jesus’ wound by the spear as the kenosis of divine compassion from the heart. His most controversial Kenotic theological assertions were that Christ deposited his divine knowledge with the Father before the Incarnation, the possibility that all people may be saved, that Christ literally was "made sin". This he describes as "Rachamin" meaning the mercy of the Sepherot’s sixth emanation, [Fideli] Tiferet in the Jewish Kabbalah. Tiferet means "mercy" and this emanation was considered the "suffering and sacrificial servant". It is true that Jesus humbled himself as a servant, but His purpose on earth was to save mankind, not to be an example of a world servant. Has there been an emphasis of Jesus as a "servant" to mankind, and as He is servant, we must also be "servants"? Service was not the reason for the Incarnation.
Przywara steered Balthasar to Karl Barth (1886-1968) and Balthasar was then influenced by this Protestant theologian. After attending a seminar of Barth’s, which was critical of the Council of Trent, Balthasar wrote a monograph on Barth’s presentations. This report was censored by his Superiors for the following reasons. "First were the theological objections; the primary and consistent one was that Balthasar did not uphold Vatican I’s teaching of the twofold order of knowledge, where both faith and natural reason provided knowledge of God. Lakner found his interpretation of nature and grace to be "incompatible" with Catholic teaching, and deficient in its understanding of natural morality. It lacked the clarity of Catholic theology because it used Barth’s terminology. It was also guilty of "traditionalism," a position that claimed knowledge of God was only available to faith. Traditionalism had already been rejected in Catholic theology." (7)
Balthasar held out false hope for universal salvation in spite of the many teachings of the Church to the contrary. "Balthasar, in "Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?", claimed there was no certainty that anyone is in Hell or ever will be in Hell. He stated that the Church ... has never said anything about the damnation of any individual. Not even about that of Judas.’ Thus, he declared, every Christian has the ‘obligation’ to hope that all men are saved, including Judas... The most disconcerting feature of Balthasar's hope for universal salvation is that its logic appears to require an assumption of Christ's ignorance and fallibility." (8)
ESOTERIC UNITY
There is the esoteric notion of unity through Monadism. The Theosophical Society says the following regarding Monadism: "Technically speaking, this essential carpentry of the universe with its inspiriting hosts may be called monadism and atomism… When these individuals are viewed as belonging to the divine and spiritual worlds, they are called monads; and when these individuals self-express themselves in the worlds of substantial being or matter, and because they therein express themselves as discrete or individual points, [Points of Light, Ed.] they are properly referred to as atoms in the original Greek sense of Democritus and Epicurus, as signifying indivisibles… The entire constitution of man is an integral and inseparable part, not only of the surrounding cosmic whole, but likewise of the solar system, and equally of the still smaller division of the cosmic whole which we may call the planetary chain of the earth." (Emphasis, Ed.) (9)
How many Nouvelle Theologians subscribed to this pantheistic or panentheistic idea? Hans Urs von Balthasar along with Fathers Keating and Pennington, who are involved with Contemplative Outreach, have endorsed the Theosophist/Anthroposophist, Valentin Tomberg, who based his esoteric teachings on the Tarot. How many parishes and schools have hosted Contemplative Outreach? How many Catholics have had their beliefs shifted from the Mystical Body of Christ to a pagan concept of Cosmic Monadism? The Catholic Church teaches that the Mystical body of Christ is composed of the Church Militant, those on earth defending the faith and striving to save their souls, The Church Suffering, those in Purgatory awaiting their heavenly reward, and the Church Triumphant, those in heaven. Christ is at the head of His Mystical Body. By His body we are united, but not by any cosmic unity which requires group salvation as taught by the Theosophists such as Robert Muller and Alice Bailey. It was Muller who was the key note speaker at the National Catholic Education Association Conference in St. Louis, in 1985. The conference was entitled "Gateway to Global Education". Muller’s ambition was to establish an esoteric one-world religion under the canopy of the United Nations.
Hans Kung: Father Hans Kung was also a peritus at Vatican II. However, by 1979, he was banned from teaching by Vatican authorities because of his critical views on contraception and papal infallibility. The following is a statement by Kung at the Global Ethic Foundation conference in Mexico City, on March 28 2007: "The Church’s absolute prohibition of abortion is a merciless extremism that could be anything but Christian," [Source 8.]
Kung has now written the book, Can We Save the Catholic Church? We Can Save the Catholic Church!, published in October of 2013. In this book, Kung relates how after fifty years the Church has only grown more conservative, refusing to open dialogue on celibacy for priests; the role of women in the priesthood; homosexuality; or the use of contraception even to prevent AIDS, the Papacy has lost touch. Now, amid widespread disillusion over child abuse, the future of Catholicism is in crisis. [Source 10] Walter Kasper, recently involved with the Extraordinary Council on the Family, was Kung’s assistant years ago. Currently Kung is ill with Parkinson’s disease, and has penned a pamphlet entitled Hans Kung: Die Happy, which apparently explores the legalization of euthanasia.
Baptized in the Spirit
Yves Cardinal Congar: Congar, who dealt with pneumatological anthropology, was yet another Nouvelle Theologian that was invited to be a peritus at Vatican II. "Thirty years ago, Yves Congar…wrote a three volume series on the Holy Spirit entitled I Believe in the Holy Spirit. It was a response to the ‘renewal ‘movement within the Catholic Church and the broader ‘Charismatic renewal movement within the universal Christian church…Congar’s objective in writing the volumes was to ground the topic of the Holy Spirit in the life and movement of the church history and to ‘…evolve the theology of the Holy Spirit and his role in the Church.’…The origins of this renewal movement lay in ‘Pentecostalism’ and was ‘…characterized by an emphasis on group worship and the exercise of spiritual ‘gifts’, especially divine healing and glossolalia.’[Speaking in tongues] By the 1980’s, this renewal movement was identified by the Vatican as ‘…one of the main lay movements’ within the Roman Catholic Church." (Emphasis, Ed.) (10)
Congar advocated being "born again", a term often used by Pentecostals and those of that persuasion. The following quote identifies his concept of "twice born". "Congar then offers an explanation of the ‘twice-born’. These are the people who have received ‘a kind of revelation’, a new birth; they have discovered a new personal set of values and a kind of change has come over their lives. They live their lives no longer in conformity to the received ideas of their social milieus but according to their own personal convictions." (Emphasis, Ed.) (11) As a phenomenologist, it seems that Congar was not only calling for Pentecostal "Baptism in the Spirit" but "inner experience", the former ignoring the Sacraments of the Church, and the latter bypassing the ecclesiastical Church. His theology of the Holy Spirit synthesizes Orthodox, Protestant, and Pentecostal perspectives to create a general agreement among Christians for the purpose of unity. This appears to be the application of syncretism for ecumenical unity.
Yves Congar, "like so many others who were out of favor before the Council have been lauded as theological geniuses since the Council. Sadly Congar had his hands in many of the documents during the Council." (12) In line with the thinking that Church is sacrament, Congar came to conclusion that lay people were kept in tutelage and treated more or less as children which made them become as indifferent to the Church’s faith as to her life. Now with all the changes since Vatican II are Catholics less indifferent? Are seminaries and nunneries flourishing as before Vatican II? For a sobering look at the statistics regarding Priests, Seminarians, Religious orders, and Church attendance, both pre and post-Vatican II, click here:
http://www.olrl.org/misc/jones_stats.shtml
Pastoral Flexibility
Walter Cardinal Kasper: Some consider Cardinal Kasper to be a representative of the liberal wing of the Catholic Church. He was part of the recent "Synod on the Family" controversy. In 1993 he signed a pastoral letter along with other members of the German episcopate urging the allowing of divorced and civilly remarried German Catholics to return to the sacraments. Recently Cardinal Burke made it very clear that such marriages are adulterous, and couples cannot receive Holy Communion under such circumstances. (Source #17) Kasper, however, labels granting such permission "pastoral flexibility". Is this another one of those ambiguities that claims to go one way, yet goes another? Does "pastoral flexibility" have implications for changes in the Dogma of the Church? The 1993 letter met with the disapproval of then Cardinal Ratzinger, and he and Pope John Paul II overruled Kasper. According to Dr. Philip Blosser, "…the Kasper-Ratzinger debate was ‘representative of a much broader conflict’ in the Church in those days – a conflict ‘between those, on the one hand, who are concerned to safeguard the unity of traditional faith and morals and those, on the other hand, who are concerned with keeping abreast of the changing time." (13) This debate had resurfaced in the 2014, and although Cardinal Kasper’s most radical proposals were more subdued in the Lineamenta, concerning the family, they are still present. People around the world are petitioning the Pope to remove these divisive proposals that are not within Church teaching. The Synod will be continued. "…of no small significance, Francis invited Kasper to address the February 2014 consistory of cardinals – and he alone was allowed to speak; no alternative viewpoints were given consideration. Topping it all, de Sousa finds it ‘astonishing’ that Kasper was given ‘a leading role’ in the October synod." (14)
According to the eminent Austrian philosopher, Thomas Stark, Kasper filters St. Thomas Aquinas through the lens of Hegel and Kant. Stark has concluded that Kasper, because of his approach to the faith, is a Modernist which includes a sort of agnosticism. In addition, Stark doubted that anyone who is arguing for a system as shocking as Kasper’s can still be considered a Catholic. (Source #19)
The Eponymous Flower made the following statement regarding the publication of Don Antonio Livi’s work entitled Disputationes Theologicae that includes "The Eucharist Kasper". "In addition to the dangers of profaning the Sacrament of Penance ‘we stand before the final attack of Gnostic-Masonic thinking against the Church of Christ’ says Disputationes Theologicae. Don Livi is concerned with the implications of the conflict by exposing the "Eucharist theology" behand the Kasper-Proposal." (15) (Emphasis, Ed.)
The Cosmic Christ- the Omega Point
Teilhard de Chardin: Father Teilhard de Chardin had as his goal a "new Christianity" based on the evolutionary perfection and unity of mankind. "The cosmic evolutionary spirituality of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) is the heir to the legacy of Christian Neoplatonism and is shaped by the philosophy of Henri Bergson, whose work was placed on the Index. Teilhard had a broader impact than any other twentieth-century panentheist." (16) (Emphasis, Ed.) His concept of a "noosphere" of thinking skin covering the earth and his Omega point of extracosmic energy (The Cosmic Christ) as the point of convergence toward which the whole of evolution and humanity was progressing, are probably nothing less than Neoplatonic and Cabalistic concepts. "Father Teilhard completes the job with a written account of last things - a new Apocalypse with God ‘a focus and center of a cosmic-personalistic Evolution and Man evolving to the Omega Point where he finds that God is himself." (Emphasis, Ed.) (17) Teilhard was a paleontologist on a quest to find the missing link in evolution, and he was bankrolled by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Institute in order to prove the theory of evolution. He was involved with the felonious "Piltdown Man" and the dubious and rigged "Peking Man".
His formula was Universalism (ecumenism and the brotherhood of man/ masonry), Futurism (a perfect world of peace rather than the Apocalypse of the Bible), and Personalism (fulfillment of personality and emotionalism in order to be complete). His Phenomenology was just another name for Auguste Comte’s Positivism. [Experience only] "This new philosophy is essentially an about face; away from God and toward the world." (18) By 1955 the Church ordered the withdrawal of his works from all Catholic Libraries, seminaries, and religious institutions and by 1962 a Monitum [solemn warning] had been placed on his works because of serious error. However, "… nothing that he [Chardin] said privately or publically was left unsaid at the Second Vatican Council, and much that he spoke has found its way into the Council’s declarations and decrees…" (Emphasis, Ed.) (19) And finally, according to Miller, Chardin said, "‘Our faith imposes on us the right and duty to throw ourselves into the things of the earth’. And this is precisely what the Roman Catholic Church has done." (20) Does this explain the seeming shift in the focus of the Church from the Spiritual to the Temporal Order?
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: Cardinal Ratzinger studied at the University of Munich, which was the center for Nouvelle Theology. There he was introduced to de Lubac, the Fathers, and St. Augustine. Instead of absorbing traditional Thomism, he followed a range of philosophers including Frederic Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber. [Egan]. Rather than following Thomas, Ratzinger’s work has a more biblical, historical and phenomenological flavor. Phenomenology focuses on "experience" and "consciousness". It was at the University of Munich, which Ratzinger attended, that Edward Husserl taught his theories, including those of Phenomenology.
Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit
"Although previously employed by Hegel in his Phenomenology of Spirit, it was Husserl’s adoption of this term (circa 1900) that propelled it into becoming the designation of a philosophical school. As a philosophical perspective, phenomenology is its method, though the specific meaning of the term varies according to how it is conceived by a given philosopher. As envisioned by Husserl, phenomenology is a method of philosophical inquiry that rejects the rationalist bias that has dominated Western thought since Plato in favor of a method of reflective attentiveness that discloses the individual’s ‘lived experience’." (21)
Fr. Ratzinger worked with Karl Rahner as an advisor at Vatican II, however, by 1968, Fr. Ratzinger adopted more conservative views and began defending traditional Catholic doctrines and values. He also later opposed Rahner’s concept of "the anonymous Christian" and at other times severely rejected some of the errors of other Nouvelle theologians. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI wrote the encyclical Spe Salvi, regarding hope, which ran counter to the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes. This caused Jürgen Moltmann, who professed Liberation Theology as well as other nouvelle views of the Trinity, to oppose Pope Benedict’s encyclical.
Nonetheless, Cardinal Ratzinger considered the theologian, Romano Guardini (1885-1968), his mentor and a great figure and interpreter of the world and of his own time. Guardini played a key role in the theological and liturgical movements of the 30’s and 40’s that led to Vatican II. In addition, Guardini collaborated with modern thinkers such as existentialist Martin Buber, phenomenologist Martin Heidegger, and personalist Max Scheler. He had a strong influence on Hans Urs von Balthasar, Giovanni Montini (Paul VI), Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger. (Source #15) Ratzinger quoted Guardini as saying "the Church is awakening with souls…[the Church] is not an institution devised and built by men…but a living reality…To the extent that we look upon the Church as organization…we have not yet arrived at a proper understanding of it". (22) In a seemingly contrasting statement, Pius X said that the Church was founded immediately and personally by the true and historical Christ during the time of His early life. The establishment of the Church by Christ means that He Himself laid down the essential elements of her teaching, her liturgy and her constitution. The Reformers taught that Christ founded an invisible Church and that her juridical organization is a purely human institution. [Ludwig Ott] The First Vatican Council, in 1868, stated that, "While Christ acquired the fruits of the Redemption by His own efficacy, the task of the Church consists in the application of the fruits of the Redemption to mankind. This is achieved by the exercise of the three-fold office delegated to the Church by Christ – the teaching office, the pastoral office and the sacerdotal office. Thus the Church is Christ continuing and perpetually working on earth". (23) Christ founded a visible Church. "The Apostles received a mission to teach, to govern, and sanctify, through a preaching of the word, through government of a visible organization, by a visible head, through a visible worship and liturgy and through sanctification imparted by the visible signs of the sacrament to the nations of the world." (Emphasis, Ed.) (24)
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: Father Lagrange taught and studied with other Nouvelle Theologians at Le Saulchoir in France. Apparently, like the heretic Loisy, Lagrange practiced the same new biblical exegesis. Loisy considered all the histories narrated in the Gospel as myths, whereas Lagrange preferred to call them "historical legends". However, Lagrange was critical of nouvelle theologians including Congar, Chenu, Rahner, de Lubac and von Balthasar. According to a review on Father Peddicord’s book on Lagrange: "The author is generally of the opinion that theology since Vatican II has lost its moorings and Garrigou offers a striking alternative to the present attempt to integrate modern philosophy with theology". (25) Lagrange also disputed Henri Bergson, a prime influence on Etienne Gilson, Maurice Blondel, Jacques Maritain and Chenu. Lagrange identified many of the heresies of Nouvelle Theologians in his article. "Where is the New Theology taking us?" (Footnote #20.)
Monadic Unity
Point in the Circle
Some of these Neo-Modernists subscribed to the Phenomenology of philosophers such as Max Scheler (1874-1928) and Edmund Husserl (1859-193). Phenomenology studies structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view, or, in other words, direct experience. Scheler is regarded as one of the most eminent disciples of Husserl father of phenomenology and taught "prophetic philosophy", combining philosophical investigation with transcendental experience. Apparently, Husserl’s logic, like some other thinkers, embraces a monadic unity regarding "reflection".
In Husserl’s "social ontology" others existed for him as part of a transcendental all-embracing monad-community. Monadic unity is based on the teachings of the ancient Greek, Pythagoras. "…the Pythagoreans believed that nothing exists without a centre around which it revolves. The centre is the source and it is beyond understanding, it is unknowable, but like a seed, the centre will expand and will fulfil itself as a circle." (26) Monism holds that reality is one fundamental, ultimate essence. Everything is of one substance or "all is one". Modern Monism is nothing more than materialism and pantheism and it was condemned by the Church.
Modern Centering Programs also seem to veer towards a point in the center on which to meditate. Fr. Thomas Keating is the founder of the Centering Prayer and Contemplative Outreach. His centering program is formulated to reach the True Self (Higher Self) at the Center, but it seems to point to self-deification. "…The Hindus, McLaine [Shirley, Ed.], and Keating all claim that the True Self (human soul) is God." (27) Apparently Keating dialogues with Ken Wilber on the topics of Centering and Integral Spirituality. Wilber and his "unified field of spiritualism" were briefly discussed in Part 6 of this series. Keating’s attendance at the Snowmass Conferences on interreligious discussions resulted is his book, The Common Heart an Experience of Inter-Religious Dialogue, with a forward by Ken Wilber and edited by the Sufi-Hasidic Fellowship and the Order of the Diverishes. Fr. Pennington O.C.S.O. (1931-2005) was the co-founder of the Centering Prayer movement. Consider Fr. Basil Pennington’s statement, "At the center, at the Source of our being, we find all others – for our Source is also their Source. We find all others are one with us in coming forth from creative love". (28) Keating, Pennington, and Hans Urs von Balthasar all endorsed the book, Meditations on the Tarot a Journey into Christian Hermeticism, written by Valentin Tomberg, a convert from Anthroposophy. Balthasar wrote the forward for this book saying: "A thinking, praying Christian of unmistakable purity reveals to us the symbols of Christian Hermeticism in its various levels of mysticism, gnosis and magic, taking in also the Cabbala and certain elements of astrology and alchemy. These symbols are summarised in the twenty-two so-called "Major Arcana" of the Tarot cards. By way of the Major Arcana the author seeks to lead meditatively into the deeper, all-embracing wisdom of the Catholic Mystery. ...." (Emphasis, Ed.) (29)
Reincarnation or the migration of souls seems to be a part of the belief system of "spiritual evolution" to the center. "A key to understanding Valentin Tomberg as a Platonist is given through his relationship with Elisabeth Vreede (1879-1943), one of Rudolf Steiner’s closest co-workers. Concerning Elisabeth Vreede, Rudolf Steiner indicated that she had incarnated earlier than planned and that she did this in order to meet Rudolf Steiner on Earth." (Emphasis, Ed.) (30) Even Origen believed in the migration of souls and the Neo-Platonism concept of emanating Monads.
The Monadic Community
Finally, in light of the Monadic Community model, are Catholics to become "equal" members of the "Peoples’ Church", according to Liberation Theology, and run the Church from below through consensus? Will consensus be used to justify changing doctrines and dogma by an "alive" Church?
Footnotes:
1. Denzinger, Henry, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Mo. and London, W.C.. 1957, Pages 75-78.
https://mospat.ru/en/2010/05/26/news19252/
2. Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis. #26. August 12, 1950.http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.htm
3. Nelson, Chris Terry, "Why the Eucharist Does not Make the Church: Part I: Henri de Lubac", Disruptive Grace, 10/8/2007.
http://disruptivegrace.blogspot.com/2007/10/why-eucharist-does-not-make-church-part.html?view=classic
4. Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis. #26, August 12, 1950http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html
5. "Karl Rahner, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Last modified December 12. 2014.
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6. Bellisario, Matthew, "The Wake of Vatican II in the light of Pope John XXIII’s Opening Address". The Coalition for Thomism, June 8, 2014.
http://catholicchampion.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-wake-of-vatican-ii-in-light-of-pope.html
7. Long, Stephen, "An Unlikely Friendship: Balthasar’s ‘Conversations with Barth’". Chapter 1. Saving Karl Barth: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Preoccupation.
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9. de Purucker, G., "the Evolutionary Pathways to God: Chapter 6", The Esoteric Tradition. Theosophical University Press.
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11. Bellisario, Matthew, "The Wake of Vatican II in the light of Pope John XXIII’s Opening Address". The Coalition for Thomism, June 8, 2014.
http://catholicchampion.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-wake-of-vatican-ii-in-light-of-pope.html
12. Ibid
13. "The Heavyweight Prelate Debate", New Oxford Notes, New Oxford Review, December 2014.
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/note.jsp?did=1214-notes-debate
14. Ibid.
15. "The Dubious Foundation of Kasper’s Theology- Friederich Schelling and the Bishops’ Synod", The Eponymous Flower, August 4, 2015. http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com
16. Cooper, John W., "Teilhard de Chardin’s Christocentric Panentheism", Chapter 6, Panentheism – The Other God of the Philosophers : From Plato to the Present. Page 148
17. Miller, Ronald, "Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – Prophet of Antichrist", Distant Drums, Vol. VII, No. 4, 1985.
18. Ibid
19. Ibid
20. Ibid
21. "Phenomenology", Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Last modified December 19.2014.
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22. Ratzinger, Cardinal Joseph, "The Ecclesiology of Vatican II", 9/15/2001.
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23. Ott, Dr. Ludwig, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Page 274, The Mercer Press, LTD, Cork.
1952. Reproduced by Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., Rockford, Illinois 61105, 1974.
24. .Deferrar, Roy J. General Ed., The Ark and the Dove, Our Quest for Happiness, Book Three,
Page 155, Mentzer, Bush and Company, Chicago, 1945.
25. "Rehabilitation of Garrigou-Lagrange, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, April 1, 2009
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26. Emily, "Unity, Wholeness, and Continuity in the Monadic Form", Beyond Borders, A medieval History Art Blog, 9/2/2013.
http://beyondborders-medievalblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/unity-wholeness-and-continuity-in.html
27. Brooks, Carol, "Roots of Evil... History and Origins of Contemplative Prayer", Part II.
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28. Network Nation, "Quotes", #33. http://networknation.net/quotes.cfm
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30. Powell, Ph.D., Robert, "Valentin Tomberg a Platonic Soul", Starlight, 2007, Vol.7, no 2, Pages 9-12.
http://www.sophiafoundation.org/images/stories/Articles/valentin%20tomberg%20platonic%20soul.pdf
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