Teilhard and the United Nations Thursday, Oct 15 2009

The United Nations recognized Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as an agent of world peace. On September 20-21, 1983 in conjunction with the opening with the 38th meeting of the UN General Assembly, an internal colloquium assembled to honor Pierre human and cosmic thought. Secretary General H.E. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar praised the his “universal, humanitarian and spiritual thinking.” The UN honored one of their own, undersecretary Robert Muller, who wrote several books using Pierre’s philosophy on global spirituality including the Noosphere (Greek “Noos”, spiritual intellect) which is the best of his many neologisms. In his book Vision of the Past, Pierre defined noosphere as the “thinking envelope of the biosphere,” and “the conscious unity of the souls.” Late in his life, Pierre wrote in his final book, The Heart of the Matter, that the noosphere was “the very Soul of the Earth.” Muller and the members of the UN believed that the success of peace in the world is a by shaping a global spirituality. Muller outlined those principles in two of his own books, Most of All They Taught Me Happiness and New Genesis: Shaping a Global Spirituality (where he listed Five Teilhardian Enlightenments).

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Nobel Peace Prize 1952-2009 Saturday, Oct 10 2009

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. “The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” Albert Schweitzer won the Peace Prize in 1952. Albert first talked of his concerns about the use of nuclear bombs in a letter to the London Daily Herald on the April 14, 1954. Albert did not get to Oslo to accept his Prize until November 4, 1954. In his acceptance address that November, he lectured the world about the danger of atomic weapons. “The superman has progressed to the stage where, thanks to a device designed for the purpose, he can use the energy released by the combustion of a given combination of chemical products. This enables him to employ a much more effective projectile and to propel it over far greater distances. However, the superman suffers from a fatal flaw. He has failed to rise to the level of superhuman reason which should match that of his superhuman strength. He requires such reason to put this vast power to solely reasonable and useful ends and not to destructive and murderous ones. Because he lacks it, the conquests of science and technology become a mortal danger to him rather than a blessing.” Albert did not stop there. He continued to be a voice against nuclear proliferation in the world. He wrote a letter to President Eisenhower on January 10, 1957 and said, “We both share the conviction that humanity must find a way to control the weapons which now menace the very existence of life on earth. May it be given to us both to see the day when the world’s people will realize that the fate of all humanity is now at stake, and that it is urgently necessary to make bold decisions that can deal adequately with the agonizing situation in which the world finds itself.” On April 24, 1957 and again on again in April 1958 Albert issued a public statement “Peace or Atomic War” on Radio Oslo begging the United States and Soviet Russia to stop testing hydrogen bombs. Albert had been nominated thirty-two times for the Prize between 1930 and 1952. Obama won on his FIRST nomination!  In 2009, Obama and Albert carries the same dire messages about the threat of nuclear weapons in the world.

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Search for the Historic Jesus Monday, Sep 28 2009

In his book The Quest for the Historic Jesus, Albert Schweitzer came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ lived as a human being in history but Jesus expected the end of time. Albert encouraged readers to come their own conclusions about the nature and life of Jesus from their unique life experiences. The controversy that surrounded Albert (and still surround scholars today) is similar to the way religious scholars today view the fiction of The Da Vinci Code. The intellectual community discussed and disputed elements of Albert’s theories about a historic Jesus. History and the personality of Jesus were the crux of Schweitzer’s investigations.

Albert published The Quest for the Historic Jesus when he was thirty-one years old, writing a liberal argument that contradicted many prominent scholars and theologians. Today with the volume of information on the Internet, The Quest for the Historic Jesus might not see the light of day. In the early part of the twentieth century, scholars did not ignore Albert’s liberal theology questioning the history of Jesus. Although he did not question Jesus’ divinity, in The Quest of the Historic Jesus, he said “we only get a Life of Jesus with yawning gaps. How are these gaps filled? These are really no other means of arriving at the order and inner connection of the facts of the life of Jesus than making and testing the hypothesis.” Nothing in the Holy Bible was written when Jesus lived. That abundance of knowledge left by twentieth century Germans and French scholars is priceless today. The book caused controversy that overshadowed Albert’s work as a humanitarian and dogged him until his death in 1965.

With his profound doubts, some people thought that Albert was a Christian humanist. He looked at the world and saw good and evil, right and wrong as interventions by humans based on human experiences. They felt that his ethics were situational. However, Albert believed in the spiritual Christ. He questioned the authenticity of the Bible as a document and rejected the miracles of Jesus (as well as the Immaculate Conception and the resurrection) but he saw God in nature. He decided to remain a Christian even though he saw the religious establishment as flawed. He thought he could preach his own convictions and live a good life. In that way, he was like most searching Christians who has doubts but chooses to live righteous lives.

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Teilhard’s Mystic Science Sunday, Sep 13 2009

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines mysticism as “a religious tendency and desire of the human soul towards an intimate union with the Divinity…. This contemplation, according to Mysticism, is not based on a merely analogical knowledge of the Infinite, but as a direct and immediate intuition of the Infinite.” Pierre understood that there was constant conflict between the secular and the religious world. Jesuits studied science so there was antagonism with Church doctrine. In his book Human Energy, he called it the “unhappy war between science and religion…. a struggle between two rivals mysticisms for the mastery of the human heart.”(177) For Pierre, science was an integral part of mysticism, the “Science of Sciences,” “the great science and the great art, the only power capable of synthesizing the riches accumulated by other forms of human activity.” In Letters from a Traveler, Pierre says, “the mystical vibration is inseparable from the scientific vibration.” During the Great War, Pierre found a mystical God in the cosmos and the battlefields of France.

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Catholic orthodoxy Saturday, Aug 29 2009

The Roman Catholic Church refused permission for Pierre to publish anything except technical scientific papers during his lifetime. After his death, his estate printed his books. The church had no control. In June 1962 the Vatican Holy Office issued a Monitum (just prior to the opening of Vatican II) saying that Teilhard’s writings “abound in ambiguous statements concerning matters of philosophy and theology, and serious errors, that offend Catholic doctrine.” The Holy See did not elaborate. Donald P. Gray, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College spoke at Marist College in 2005 on the fiftieth anniversary of Teilhard’s death. He said that the condemnation would have been much worse except that the same year Father Henri de Lubac wrote his book The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin (Le Pensée religieuse du Père Teilhard de Chardin). The censors of the book ordered that the book not be reprinted. The first printing was tripled and sent to the warehouse so copies would always be available for posterity. “In his spiritual writings Père Teilhard was always more concerned to define an interior attitude than to lay bare the dogmatic foundations. They do, indeed emerge in many of his writings and are given prominence, but they are not the object of a study in any way comparable to that we find in The Phenomenon of Man or Le Milieu Divin.

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Sacred Heart of Jesus Monday, Aug 17 2009

All the prayer books in the house of Teilhard de Chardin had a fleur-de-lis on the cover. While the children learned from an English or German governess, Madame Teilhard taught them about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. According to http://www.thesacredheart.com/ Christ chose Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), Visitandine of the monastery at Paray-le Monial in France, to reveal the desires of His Heart and to confide the task of inspiring new life to the devotion. There is nothing to indicate that this epiphany had been known to anyone prior to the revelations. There were many encounters with Jesus. The appearance was especially vivid! They occurred on the feast of Saint John when Jesus permitted Margaret Mary to rest her head upon His Heart and then disclosed to her the wonders of His love, telling her that He desired to make them known to all mankind and to spread His goodness to the world. He had chosen her for this work. Historians believe this happened on December 27, 1673. Jesus appeared radiant with love and asked for a devotion of love through frequent Communion beginning with Communion on the First Friday of the month and the observance of the Holy Hour probably during June and July 1674. That known as the “great apparition” which took place during the octave of Corpus Christi (probably June 16, 1675). Jesus purportedly said, “Behold the Heart that has so loved men, instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part of mankind only ingratitude” and asked her for a feast of reparation of the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, bidding Father de la Colombière (then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray) for a new devotion especially confided to the religious of the Visitation and the Jesuit priests. The death of Margaret Mary, 17 October 1690 did not dampen the enthusiasm of the people. A short account of her life published by Father Croiset in 1691, as an appendix to his book “De la Dévotion au Sacré Cœur” served only to increase it. In spite of all sorts of obstacles, and of the slowness of the Vatican to recognize what happened at Paray-le Monial, which in 1693 imparted indulgences to the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart (and in 1697 granted the feast to the Visitandines with the Mass of the Five Wounds), the Pope refused a feast common to all. Later there was a special Mass and Office as devotion spread, particularly in religious communities. The Marseilles plague in 1720 furnished perhaps the first occasion for a solemn consecration and public worship outside of religious communities. Other cities of the South followed the example of Marseilles. In 1726, it was deemed advisable once more to importune Rome for a feast with a Mass and Office of its own. However, in 1729 Rome again refused. However, in 1765, it finally yielded and that same year, at the request of the queen, the feast was received quasi officially by the episcopate of France. In 1856 Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the universal Church under the rite of double major. In 1889, it was raised by the Church to the double rite of first class. The acts of consecration and of reparation were everywhere introduced together with the devotion. Since about 1850 groups, congregations and States have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart. In 1875 this consecration was made throughout the Catholic world. Still the pope did not wish to take the initiative or to intervene. On 11 June 1899, by order of Leo XIII and with the formula prescribed by him, all mankind was solemnly consecrated to the Sacred Heart. The idea of this act, which Leo XIII called “the great act” of his pontificate, had been proposed to him by a religious of the Good Shepherd from Oporto (Portugal) who said that she had received it from Christ Himself. She was a member of the Drost-zu-Vischering family, and known in religion as Sister Mary of the Divine Heart. She died on the feast of the Sacred Heart, two days before the consecration, which had been deferred to the following Sunday. While alluding to these great public manifestations those who are blessed by the Sacred Heart of Jesus must not omit referring to the intimate life of the devotion in souls, to the practices connected with it, and to the works and associations of which it was the very life. Moreover, they must not overlook the social character that it has assumed particularly of late years. The Catholics of France, especially, cling to the Sacred Heart as one of their strongest hopes of ennoblement and salvation. For Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, it created hope every day of his life.

 

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki Thursday, Aug 6 2009

On this date August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima Japan. The second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945. From his hospital at Lambaréné, these deaths terrified Albert. He knew that it ended World War II but also violated his covenant of reverence for life. In 1957, he issued a worldwide public appeal, “A Declaration of Conscience.” In it he said, “That radioactive elements created by us are found in nature is an astounding event in the history of the earth and of the human race. To fail to consider its importance and its consequences would be a folly for which humanity would have to pay a terrible price. We are committing a folly in thoughtlessness. It must not happen that we do not pull ourselves together before it is too late. We must muster the insight, the seriousness, and the courage to leave folly and to face reality.” Albert published a book Peace or Atomic War? which remains as relevant and compelling today as it was 51 years ago, given President Obama’s efforts at proliferation of nuclear weapons today.

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Civil rights movement Monday, Jul 27 2009

The ‘tête à tête encounters between blacks and whites in modern society has become only a little bit smoother in the era since Barack Obama became president. That one achievement has not healed wounds that festered for a lifetime. The arrest of African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates in his own home brought to bear how easy it is for a new storm to brew. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/21gates.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=henry%20louis%20gates&st=cse 

Albert Schweitzer became interested in race relations when he was a little boy. He was drawn to the plight of the Black man in far-flung nations of the world. In the village square at Colmar in Alsase he visited a monument built by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi to a famous French Admiral Bruat. Part of the sculpture was an oversized, reclining Negro figure that intrigued Albert because it resembled a noble, suffering motif of a man from Africa. “His face, with its sad, thoughtful expression, spoke to me of the misery of the Dark Continent.” This encounter first occurred when Albert was ten years old. It made a profound influence on his life and his biographers say that he decided as a young boy to dedicate his life to making life better for Africans.

Albert visited the statue in Colmar hundreds of times. When his sister Louisa married Monsieur Jules Ehretmann and lived in Colmar, Albert visited the statue often as an adult. In James Bentley’s biography of Schweitzer, he says that “Each time, he purposely went to brood over Bartholdo’s statue, in order, as he put it to be ’tête à tête with my negro.’”

Later, Albert recalled of his face-to-face encounter with the Negro, “If record could be made of all that has happened between white and the colored races, some of the pages—referring to recent as well as to earlier times–would be turned over unread, because their contents would be too horrible for the reader.” http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/07/24/us/politics/1247463625698/obama-on-gates-s-arrest.html

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A Twitter account in 1954? Saturday, Jul 18 2009

Albert Schweitzer used his fame as a missionary doctor and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to campaign against the testing of atomic weapons. If he were alive today, he would keep blog to record his thoughts about the destruction of human life that he saw over his lifetime in war and in his hospital. Albert would use a Twitter account to record his thoughts from deep in the jungle about reverence for life. Of course that was not possible in the 1950s so he wrote letters in long hand to Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer at Princeton University to inquire about the testing of the H-bomb. Albert also inquired about the research done on survivors of the American bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. In addition to the United States, by 1954, Russia and Britain had tested hydrogen bombs. On April 24, 1957 he issued “Declaration of Conscience,” a document stating his opposition to testing of weapons. He sent a letter to Eisenhower in which he said: “We both share the conviction that humanity must find a way to control the weapons which now menace the very existence of life on earth.” It was part of Albert’s campaign of reverence for life but it made the president angry. 

In 1983, as senior at Columbia University President Obama wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of “a nuclear free world.” Today the many countries of the world posses an arsenal of nuclear weapons. http://www.yale.edu/reflections/lead_sp09.shtml  The list of countries who have an inventory of warheads include the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea.

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The Struggle in Honduras Tuesday, Jul 7 2009

Looking at the overthrow of the government in Honduras through the lens of Teilhard’s theology gives us a clearer picture of what is going on in the world. Pierre is closely linked to the Roman Catholic movement of Liberation Theology in Latin America. It is an attempt to interpret Scripture through the plight of the poor and marginalized in the world that began in South America in the 1950s. It is also Marxist http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/world/americas/02honduras.html?hp because of its emphasis on redistribution of wealth to the poor so they could share a greater status in life. Since those who had power (in this case money) would not to part with it, the poor and their advocates (the priests) revolted. The revolution in Latin America with Jose Manuel Zelaya (the President of Honduras) http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/z/jose_manuel_zelaya/index.html?inline=nyt-per leading the way is similar to the one in Iran. Like all struggles in the Kingdom, they take place in God’s time. Pierre taught that plants and animals evolve in biological time (God’s time) while humans are ruled by history. Liberation Theology is an organic movement. It moved from the poor peasants in South America to the poor blacks in the rural south of the United States. There is Black Liberation Theology being preached in the black community. The U. S. civil rights marches of the 1960s looks very like the civil unrest of Iran of 2009. In liberation theology the oppressive structures of history are torn down and new ones are built in their place. In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI plans to release his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate today. The encyclical — an authoritative teaching document from the pope — will apply Benedict’s ideas and the Catholic social justice tradition to the economic crisis. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html It will also come out as the G-8 summit convenes in Italy.

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