Dissenting Theologians

[davidschnelly]

I would appreciate if someone could tell me the Church’s “official” positions on Teilhard de Chardin and Edward Schillebeckx. Our pastor seems to be enamored with both and before I question anything I’d like to have my facts straight.

 

[CARose]

You may want to post this question to the Ask an Apologists Forum. It seems perfect for them and you will know you can trust the answer you get.

CARose

 

[Bob_Baran]

davidschnelly:

I would appreciate if someone could tell me the Church’s “official” positions on Teilhard de Chardin and Edward Schillebeckx. Our pastor seems to be enamored with both and before I question anything I’d like to have my facts straight.

Teilhard de Chardin wrote books with many ambiguities and spoke against Catholic Doctrine. Edward Schillebeckx denied the true presence of the Eucharist; instead of transubstantiation he called it transignification.

 

[buffalo]

**Teaching authority stops with the Bishops. Theologians have no teaching authority.

85 **“The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.” This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

davidschnelly:

I would appreciate if someone could tell me the Church’s “official” positions on Teilhard de Chardin and Edward Schillebeckx. Our pastor seems to be enamored with both and before I question anything I’d like to have my facts straight.

To the extent that these taught various forms of modernism, the official position is against modernism. You won’t find a ban against all things by these men, but you will find magisterial teachings in response to some of what these men taught. For example, against the assertions of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, you can reference Humani Generis.

Here’s an article by James Akin you may find helpful:

Modernism
ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/MODERSM.TXT

 

[itsjustdave1988]

see also …

WARNING REGARDING THE WRITINGS OF FATHER TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (1962 & 1981)
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFTEILH.HTM

 

[FelixBlue]

Bob Baran:

Teilhard de Chardin wrote books with many ambiguities and spoke against Catholic Doctrine. Edward Schillebeckx denied the true presence of the Eucharist; instead of transubstantiation he called it transignification.

Perhaps a technicality, but I don’t think Schillebeckx actually denied the real presence…rather, he was trying to “update” the doctrine by puting it into new philosophical categories (instead of the Aristotelian categories of form/substance and accident). He was simply speculating on how we can understand the real presence in a new way…

 

[itsjustdave1988]

From Jame Akin’s article linked to above:

Modernism reappeared under the influence of theologians and writers such as Hans Kung, Edward Schillebeeckx, and Charles Curran. These clerics challenged papal and scriptural infallibility, rejected Catholic moral teachings (such as on contraception), and began to promote ideas such as women’s ordination to the priesthood. Over time, these individuals *were censured by the Church and prohibited from presenting themselves as Catholic theologians.
*

 

[itsjustdave1988]

From an interview in the Summer of 1994…

---

**A Vision of the Church, Edward Schillebeeckx at 80
**by Lewis Ayres
affirmingcatholicism.org.uk/Article.asp?UID=57

**L.A. = **Lewis Ayres
E.S. = Edward Schillebeeckx

**L.A.**Do you think that when a change to the ordination of women comes on the Roman Catholic side it will come quickly, perhaps as a surprise?

**E.S.**I think so; the pope said that the ordination of women in the Anglican Church is a stumbling block, but I think the contrary. Polls say that more than seventy-eight per cent of Catholics agree that it is impossible in the long run for the hierarchy to stop it.

And from Pope John Paul II, Spring 1994:

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

(Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4, May 1994)