A New Theology, Another Christ?

 As the march of Modernist Evolutionism continues "forward," the explicitness of Teilhardian metaphysics and theology emerges with increasing boldness. John XXIII spoke of it in his opening address to Vatican II; Paul VI approved of it in Gaudium et Spes; John Paul II audaciously announced that evolution was "more than a hypothesis;" Benedict XVI hailed the resurrection of Christ as a "mutation;" and now Francis outdoes them all and refers explicitly to Teilhard de Chardin in a magisterial document:

"83. ...all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator.
243. At the end [i.e., at the Final Judgment], we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12), and be able to read with admiration and happiness the mystery of the universe, which with us will share in unending plenitude. Even now we are journeying towards the sabbath of eternity, the new Jerusalem, towards our common home in heaven. Jesus says: “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature [Spanish: cada criatura], resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.
244. In the meantime, we come together to take charge of this [common] home which has been entrusted to us, knowing that all the good which exists here will be taken up into the heavenly feast. In union with all creatures [Spanish: con todas las criaturas], we journey through this [earthly] land seeking God…. Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope." (Laudato Si)

If anyone doubts that this is the Nouvelle Theologie condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis, please post your objections here. This is another theology which, in the final analysis, offers the world "another Christ" (2 Cor. 11:4) whom we have not received, and in whom faith is futile. Teilhard's Christic or Cosmic Christ is not the Christ of Catholic Faith.

"However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system of the Modernist: the positive side of it consists in what they call vital immanence. This is how they advance from one to the other. Religion, whether natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some explanation. But when Natural theology has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. Hence the principle of religious immanence is formulated."
Pope St. Pius X, ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS

Pope John Paul II taught that Christ has united Himself with each man forever, and that each man is a "sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived beneath the heart of his mother (RH #13)." The union he speaks of has nothing to do with Gospel preaching, contrition, repentance, faith, or baptism. This is Teilhard's Cosmic Christ.

"Christ the Lord indicated this way especially, when, as the Council teaches, "by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man". The Church therefore sees its fundamental task in enabling that union to be brought about and renewed continually. The Church wishes to serve this single end: that each person may be able to find Christ, in order that Christ may walk with each person the path of life, with the power of the truth about man and the world that is contained in the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption and with the power of the love that is radiated by that truth. Against a background of the ever increasing historical processes, which seem at the present time to have results especially within the spheres of various systems, ideological concepts of the world and regimes, Jesus Christ becomes, in a way, newly present, in spite of all his apparent absences, in spite of all the limitations of the presence and of the institutional activity of the Church." (emphasis mine)
Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis

And where will each person find Christ? In himself!

"...that we may be like those "violent people of God" that we have so often seen in the history of the Church and still see today, and that we may consciously join in the great mission of revealing Christ to the world, helping each person to find himself in Christ, and helping the contemporary generations of our brothers and sisters, the peoples, nations, States, mankind, developing countries and countries of opulence-in short, helping everyone to get to know "the unsearchable riches of Christ", since these riches are for every individual and are everybody's property." (emphasis mine)
Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis

In a devastating analysis, Father Johannes Dormann draws a startling conclusion about the theology of Karol Wojtyla:

"A comparison of the principles of knowledge in Cardinal Wojtyla's [Pope John Paul II] New Theology with those of classical theology makes the fundamental differences clearly come to light. In classical theology, God is the material and formal object of theology. In the New Theology of Cardinal Wojtyla, the object is man. The diametrical opposition is manifest. Through the confusion of nature and grace in the axiom of universal salvation, the traditional "dualism" is entirely eliminated. The traditional distinctions of the natural and supernatural knowledge of God, of natural and supernatural revelation, of natural reason and supernatural faith, of natural and supernatural theology, no longer apply. The virtue of faith, which is constitutive for the process of justification, is no longer required for salvation since all men are are a priori redeemed and justified.
...The Cardinal's New Theology provides an extensive foundation for interreligious dialogue: the "Church of the living God" (p. 17) unites all men. Universal salvation is the common basis. The concepts of revelation and faith are not proper to the Catholic religion. All religions contain genuine revelation. The faith encompasses all "believers" in all religions. Genuine faith is faith in humanity. But "revelation," which is offered to man in Christ," thus the Christian faith is for Cardinal Wojtyla the faith in which the "mystery of man," "existence in Christ," is "enlightened" once and for all. This "offer" is thus by no means necessary for salvation, nor is it exclusive or binding. There is also revelation, faith and the experience of God in other religions. On the basis of religious liberty, interreligious dialogue as a brotherly exchange of religious experiences for the sake of mutual enrichment is the primrose path towards universal religious harmony."
Father Johannes Dormann, Sacred Theology Doctor
Director, of the Institute for Missionwork and the Study of Religions at Wilhelms-University, Munster, Westphalen, Germany.
Quote taken from Pope John Paul II's Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi, Part 1, pages 121-123, (c) 1994 by Angelus Press

The most troubling doctrinal assertion of Redemptor hominis is the emphasis on the Incarnation at the expense of the Passion and priestly sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In the encyclical, the Pope uses the word 'redemption' 37 times; the word 'justification' is never used. Men are not redeemed by the Incarnation, although this is the unmistakable theme of RH. They are redeemed by the priestly sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Yet Pope John Paul II finds the basis for a formal union of each man with the divine person of Christ simply by the fact that Christ became man and men exist "in Christ". The encyclical claims this union without faith, baptism, or even the willingness of each man. Therefore the priestly sacrifice of Christ is reduced to a "sign of God's love" for man, instead of the means whereby men are redeemed and by which men can be saved by grace through faith.

This error is also metaphysical in that the break with classical soteriology is no doubt based on Wojtyla's evolutionism. For the Pope, the Incarnation is a peak of evolutionary development, about which some theologians (not Wojtyla) conjectured that spirit evolves from matter (Teilhard, Rahner). Therefore, Christ's Incarnation effects an actual change in human nature which now "exists in Christ" (Dormann).

The total break with the soteriology of the preconciliar era is clear. And there is no new penetration of theological insights at work here, but an attempt to synthesize modern scientific theories and hypotheses with the Deposit of Faith.

"God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us...by the Son, his Word, who became man and was born of the Virgin Mary. This act of redemption marked the high point of the history of man within God's loving plan. God entered the history of humanity and, as a man, became an actor in that history..."

Clearly here he calls the incarnation the efficient cause of the redemption. If men are redeemed by the Incarnation, and formally united to Christ forever, and "exist in Christ," then what remains? For them to arrive at this awareness of being united to Christ forever in their consciousness. Hence, the requirement for dialogue with men of all religions, who too, are united to Christ albeit in ignorance.

St. Pius X, in Pascendi:

 "Hence, Venerable Brethren, springs that ridiculous proposition of the Modernists, that every religion, according to the different aspect under which it is viewed, must be considered as both natural and supernatural. Hence it is that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous. Hence the law, according to which religious consciousness is given as the universal rule, to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and to which all must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in its teaching capacity, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline."
Pope St. Pius X, ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS

Pope Francis is not introducing new ideas; far from it. He is building on the New Theology suppressed by Pope Pius XII with remarkable patience and consistency. The universalism increasingly explicit in Pope Bergoglio's doctrine is fully developed by John Paul II. Its primary metaphysic is evolutionary; its philosophy is existentialist; its theology is nondogmatic; its Christ is the Evolver, the Christic of Teilhard de Chardin. It is difficult not to conclude that this is indeed another Christ "whom we have not received" (2 Corinthians 11:4).

"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council..." Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis