Fishwrap’s article on LCWR’s keynote speaker: “Teilhard would find in Barbara a kindred spirit”

From the LCWR… er ummm… Fishwrap. The National Catholic Reporter has an article on the LCWR’s keynote speaker: Barbara Marx Hubbard.

Read below and then ponder why the LCWR refused to allow the CDF’s liaison Bp. Sartain to attend their assembly. HERE

This is how Barbara Marx Hubbard describes herself on her Facebook page:

I am an 82 year old Visionary enjoying “Regenopause 2.” Regenopause 1 is from 50 to 80. # 2 is 80 and beyond. I feel I am here to be a voice for the Collective Emergence of humanity as a Co-creative Universal Species!

I am not making this up:

My emphases:

Catholic theology inspires LCWR keynote speaker
Aug. 06, 2012
By Alice Popovici

Barbara Marx Hubbard, an evolutionary thinker who is to speak this week before the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, is not Catholic or part of any mainstream religion. But she says she has faith in the future.  [Why should they be bound in by Christian conventions when choosing a keynote speaker.  Why even have a Christian topic?]
She will bring this message of hope [hope… in what exactly?] to LCWR when she delivers the keynote address at the organization’s annual meeting Tuesday through Friday in St. Louis. The audience is likely to still be reeling from the criticism in a Vatican assessment that has shaken communities of sisters throughout the country.  [Yes, I am sure that, even after these weeks, they are still all “reeling” with crying-spells, sick-headaches, the vapors.]
“It’s a message of hope, of cooperation and alignment,” [cooperation and alignment… with what?] Hubbard said of the ideas she will explore in her speech. “How can we align that impulse to the deeper impulse of Christ in evolution, of God in evolution?”  [What the hell does that mean?  Grrrr.  I am still waiting for my invitation from the LCWR.  I really want to know what this means!]
Hubbard, who spoke recently in front of a couple of congregations of Catholic sisters, said she felt that her impulse to look toward the future and toward evolution was aligned with the “spiritual impulse of faith and trust and love” that she sees in the sisters, who are always working to meet society’s needs.  [Again… what does that mean?]
“I felt that they were true evolutionary leaders,” Hubbard said, describing a “sense of synthesis and synergy” she saw in the sisters. “I felt, in some respects, that I had come home, to a family.” [Wow.  Just… wow.]
Sr. Annmarie Sanders, LCWR’s associate director of communications, said the organization invited Hubbard to speak in order to get her perspective “on the context of the world in which women religious are living and ministering.” [Doesn’t seem to include the Catholic Church.]
But Sanders added that Hubbard’s is “one among many perspectives women religious would be considering as they [look] to the future of this life and how the life can best serve the needs of people today.” [What are the other “perspectives”.]
Sanders, a member of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Scranton, Pa., serves on NCR’s board of directors.
Part of the Vatican order to LCWR calls for a review of the speakers to the group’s annual conferences. The Vatican’s doctrinal assessment found that “Addresses given during LCWR annual Assemblies manifest problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal errors.”  [D’ya think?]
Catholic theologians [such as Margaret Farley and Sandra Schneiders?] familiar with Hubbard’s work, however, find much to recommend.
Hubbard, who is 82 and lives in Santa Barbara, Calif., is a mother and grandmother, educator and activist, author of several books, subject of a new book titled The Mother of Invention, and a former nominee for the U.S. vice presidency (she would have shared the 1984 ticket with Walter Mondale).

But she is best known for founding “conscious evolution,” a worldview that she says was inspired in part by Catholic theology. It is based on the belief that as members of a global society linked to one another by the Internet and social media we are becoming more aware of the world around us and more willing to change it for the better.  [WOWIE! The Internet!  Social media!  This’ll be cutting edge stuff for the gals.]
“If somebody is suffering in Africa, we feel it. If there’s a tsunami in Japan, we know it, we feel it, we want to care for each other,” [If a butterfly coughs in Africa…] Hubbard said. “I feel that we are an evolving species, and that the type of humans that are being born in all these different experiences are trying to make a better world in any possible way.”  [That has a rather Faustian ring.]
Hubbard, who was raised in a nonreligious Jewish family, began her search for spiritual meaning in her youth. She said she began to find the answers to her questions in the writing of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit priest, [Are you surprised!] theologian and paleontologist who would become one of the biggest influences on her work.
Teilhard, who died in 1955, wrote of a “thinking layer of Earth” called a “noosphere,” Hubbard said, and that prediction is today’s reality. [He received a monitum from the Holy Office in 1962.]
“Here we are in 2012, we now have a noosphere: It’s Facebook, it’s Twitter, it’s the 5.7 billion cell phones, texting,” Hubbard said. “The planet has grown a new nervous system in the last 50 years, and this nervous system connects us.” [That’s nice.  Catholics have the Christ, Holy Church, and the Sacraments.   Moreover, that is NOT what Teilhard meant by “noosphere”.  What a fraud.  Unless … maybe … she means something like SkyNet!?]
Catholic theologians familiar with Hubbard and her writing on “conscious evolution” say there is, indeed, a link between her work and Teilhard’s.
Though Teilhard’s writing was not without critics in the Vatican, it had a significant impact [?] on the Second Vatican Council, said John Haught, senior fellow in science and religion at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center in Washington.
“Teilhard would find in Barbara a kindred spirit,” Haught said. “He thought that the basic division in humanity is not between believers and nonbelievers, but between those who hope and those who do not.”  [Lord, I hope these women wise up before they die.]
Franciscan Sr. Ilia Delio, a senior research fellow in science and religion at Woodstock Theological Center, said Hubbard is a “forward thinker” who, during the LCWR meeting, may call on women religious “to be more creative and engaging in our life and the way we think about God and creation.”  [Perhaps even to evolve beyond Christ.]
“I think she might say that we are in a new age, [perhaps the proper orthography is overruled by the Fishwrap’s style sheet.] knowing ourselves to be in evolution, and certainly for religious women, this is a very different awareness than where religious life evolved in a static universe, and developed within the parameters of a static universe,” Delio said. “And we no longer live in that universe, we live in an evolutionary one.”  [Remember: their cereal box theologians have them convinced that they are now “prophetic” figures who have passed beyond obedience to the Church’s hierarchy.]

Wow.  Just Wow.

The nuns ought to invite George Noory or listen to old Art Bell tapes from Coast To Coast nighttime radio if this is the sort of … rubbish they want to hear.

This is seriously messed up.

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80 Comments

  1. Horatius says:

    Best red-letter comments ever, Father: great work!

  2. CatholicMD says:

    Barbara – Put down the bong.

  3. Bob B. says:

    If there was any doubt, this proves it….How ’bout some enneagrams with some Kumbaiya music in the background and since we can’t tell if you’re really nuns or not, how about wearning some tie-dyes and something to groove with (you can use fishwrap for the paper)?

  4. disco says:

    Ha ha ha, CatholicMD. I was going to say I never inhaled in college, but Babs sure as hell did.

  5. acardnal says:

    I don’t understand why you, Fr. Z, did not get an invitation. I am sure Shirley MacLaine, Oprah Winfrey, Ekhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson all got invites.

  6. Thomas S says:

    Hopefully they remember to tie down their ordination tambourines so they don’t float away, in case of less gravity on whatever planet they’re having this conference on.

  7. Bryan Boyle says:

    Do these harpies ever listen to playbacks of themselves? I mean, how many banal cliches can you fit into one sentence before any sense at all is lost in a self-reverential torrent of psychobabble?

    Put down the bong? Not putting it down would be an improvement. On some level, then at least they’d have an excuse.

    Wow. Just wow.

  8. Simon_GNR says:

    Barbara Marx Hubbard – she’s not by any chance related to L. Ron Hubbard, is she? Her beliefs seem about as close to orthodox Catholicism as those of the founder of Scientology! Or, with regard to her middle name, is she related to the Marx Brothers? Her views seem to carry about as much intellectual weight as the collected speeches of Harpo Marx!

  9. Phillip says:

    “inspired in part by Catholic theology”

    How?

    [Both her thought and Catholic thought are thought about by Carbon-based life-forms.]

  10. Mariana says:

    “the Collective Emergence of humanity as a Co-creative Universal Species!”

    So…resistance is futile?

    [LCWR will add Hubbard’s distinctiveness to their own.]

  11. Since Simon_GNR o’erleapt my musings, I will remark how charitable-in-re-honesty he seems; I would never in a hundred lives of men have supposed that L.Ron believed any of what he sold to the Tologists. Since I can’t tell what Ms. H gains by her keynoting, I also can’t guess either way whether she believes anything she’s saying, though as with LRH, I’m sure plenty of willing people do anyways.

  12. acardnal says:

    “Beam me up, Scotty.”

  13. Indulgentiam says:

    Regenopause? apparently they’re on an evolving planet with its own language and everything. [Think about that term and its implications.]
    Wow! Heaven help these poor souls.

  14. Johnno says:

    I can easily believe ‘Catholic theology’ inspired her… that is… erroneous theology written by Catholics that was freely passed around without condemnation by all levels of laity and clergy.

    Also, the sooner more Catholics wise up to the fact that the ‘science’ behind cosmological and biological evolution is bogus, the better! It will go a long ways to undoing a lot of the stupidity that has befallen us.

  15. Chris Garton-Zavesky says:

    Tuppence —

    Is Regenopause related to rex, regis; or is it gens, gentis; or genesis?

    So, Father, could you translate all her verbiage into English? Did she work for ICEL at one point?

    [I think her feminist neologism “regno-pause” must be a conflation of Latin regnum, “kingdom” and ” Greek pausis or “halt”. Think of menopause (Greek men, “month”. Thus, at her age, she is past her time of being able to give birth, as it were, to the “kingdom”. I think that is what is going on. So, she is going to be talking to a big group of gals who are in Regnopause I (50-80), who are also past being able to produce fruit. Let’s call them barren, when it comes to helping bring about an encounter with Christ, who, in His Person, brings the Kingdom of God. Thus, I find it fitting that another one of their speakers is a lesbian, who also cannot produce fruit naturally. She, however, is in the right age group (before 50). Thus, she could be the paradigm for the future of the LCWR types: of an disordered sexual inclination whose formation is an MDiv from Yale under the mentoring of Sr. Margaret Farley, and who works for Presbyterians. HEY! You asked. Had I been invited to the Assembly, I would not have to speculate. No, but wait. I got that all wrong. It’s “regeno=pause”, not “regno-pause”. Well, I like my version better.]

  16. I don’t have words to describe this other than..fail…epic fail….

  17. Sandy says:

    You are really not making this up, Father? [Nope!] It can’t be real thoughts from a human! Everything that flashed through my mind has been said above. On what planet does this woman live? How can a Christian? get so screwed up?! The most important point is one you made, Father; may they all repent before they die!

  18. acardnal says:

    In honor of NASA’s big day last night and Apollo 13 I can only say, “Holy Father, we have a problem.”

  19. revueltos67 says:

    Last year about this time the bulletin for my parish in Albuquerque, NM showed up with an insert describing the vacation bible school that had been going on during the summer. The insert had pictures of St. Peter, St. Paul, St Therese and Teilhard de Chardin.

  20. Regenopause: A new stage of life; the shift in the life cycle of the woman after menopause when she is free to give birth to her own authentic self, leading toward the self-regenerating, self-evolving “evolutionary woman,” a new phase of species evolution. Vital now for guidance as we enter late transition on planet Earth. (source)

    But is there anything like this for men?

  21. To answer my own question, yes:

    Regenerative Man: A man who has been raised in the patriarchy and who makes the inner decision to release himself from the need to be the dominator, to access his own essential self, surrender to that unique creativity within and seek co-equal cocreative partnership with others. The counterpart of the regenopausal woman.

  22. AndyMo says:

    Yikes: “Self, self, self, self, self.”

    It’s almost hard to believe the Church has a problem with this BS. /sarcasm

  23. pelerin says:

    ‘Regenopause’ ? It sounds like something Dr Who goes through every few years when a different actor portrays this character. Re-gen-er-ate ! Re-gen-er-ate!

  24. MuchLikeMartha says:

    The only parts I was able to understand were the ones in red.

  25. majuscule says:

    Because Ms Hubbard’s message of evolutionary hope, driven by and resonating with the deeper impulses of alignment, synthesizing synergetically within the context of the deeper ministering to the service of the Vatican’s constantly evolving proto-doctrinal manifestations, the perspective of the nooshperic cosmic cataclysm must be… Must be… ummm… Where was I going with this… (cough cough) A regenopause moment I suppose. Forgive me, I need to say a prayer to St. Lydia Pinkham…

  26. acardnal says:

    Ms. Hubbard has some curious items for sale on her website.

    The “NOW” wristwatch is described as follows:
    Need to stay on schedule? Want to stay present?
    This unique, limited edition wrist watch is a daily reminder that every moment is NOW.

    And then there is the The “Wheel of Co-creation” Necklace:
    The necklace is handcrafted in 5 cm diameter glass and comes with a waxed string to wear or to hang in any other place, for example, in your sanctuary, house or car. They are painted with transparent varnish letting the light shine through. The necklace other than being beautiful and attractive is a way to take with you the energy of the mandala of co-creation wherever you go.

    The necklace comes in a box with a leaflet telling how to take care of it and also a text about the meaning of the mandala. The text is the following:

    “This mandala is the Wheel of Co-creation. Each sector represents the human capacity to co-create together in alignment with the Impulse of Evolution. This Impulse is animating all the sectors and is the core of the mandala.”

    I would love to see her bank account.

  27. APX says:

    Dear Lord, this woman was a nominee for VP of the United States in 1984! Could you imagine if she was elected?
    Her nomination acceptance speech:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1FWXm-8FGs The person’s expression at 3:33 says it all.

    Barbara Marx Hubbard is the spokesperson for New Age Quackery. She is to humanistic ideology as Lady Gaga is to fashion.

    Father Z,

    Invitations are too traditional for these people. You just need to crash these types of shindigs, but not in the polite niciness way. What you gotta do is get together a group of like-minded priests, bringing along some exorcists may prove useful, and find someone with a helicopter who can fly you to the event to leave a lasting impression. Forget “Nuns on a Bus” and bring on “Priests on a Heli.”

  28. NoTambourines says:

    They think claiming to be “prophetic” lets them off the hook?

    John 10:9: “I am the gate.”

    You can’t get “beyond” the gate.

    Matt. 7:15-16: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.”

  29. amenamen says:

    Gabby Johnson translates the LCWR proceedings into authentic frontier gibberish for us.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5Mr5eCF2U

  30. aviva meriam says:

    I am seriously disappointed in the theological tract Sr. Ilia Delio has taken…… I’ve read (at the suggestion of a priest) some of her work on Bonaventure and was impressed. when she stayed within the Foundation of the church, her work was masterful (or maybe I’m wrong….?) What happened?

  31. Fr. Frank says:

    Regenopause: You shall not die! You shall be as gods!

    Errr . . . goddesses, I mean.

  32. Indulgentiam says:

    Father, I could have sat in the thinking man position from now till the crack of doom and not gotten anywhere near the explanation you just gave Chris Garton-Zavesky. You made my head hurt. Tomorrow when my left eye stops twitching I’m going to get out my trusty websters and have another go at your explanation. Wow your education was worth every penny :)

  33. acardnal says:

    THIS is the woman who will be speaking to the “Roman Catholic” nuns group:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohQWuZcFxek&feature=related

    I watched this video and like so many of these New Age gurus, I have absolutely NO idea what she said. No cogency. No point. Just Nunsense.

  34. EXCHIEF says:

    Too much bad dope, too many repetitions of Kumbyeya (or however it’s spelled) and way too little correction by the Church as this spaceship of a thinker evolved to her current level of foolishness.

  35. This is like shooting at fish in a barrel, but I can’t help myself. I could probably write a computer program that would generate more coherent text than what Hubbard is spouting. It reads like random words just cut and pasted together. It makes an 1973 ICEL prayer translation look like a skilled work of art.

  36. Gail F says:

    Fr Frank wrote: “Regenopause: You shall not die! You shall be as gods!”
    HA HA HA HA HA!!
    Fr Z: It’s “regenopause,” not “regnopause.” [By cracky! You’re right! My bad.] They had menopause and then “regenerated” into (I’m sure) Earth Elders, as the Imago people would have it. It is so sad, really. They want SO MUCH to be really important.

  37. Charles E Flynn says:

    Is there a chance that this will all turn out to be a marketing scheme for a forthcoming Star Trek movie?

  38. yatzer says:

    “regenopause” I’m in the age group, but am only interested if the regeneration she speaks of has something to do with my joints. I’ve already got the kind from Baptism and don’t need a new life phase. Hmph! So there.
    Come to think of it, I’ve been hearing this stuff since I was an Episcopalian in the early 1970’s. It’s one of several reasons I’m Catholic. Apparently this stuff has metastasized.

  39. wmeyer says:

    They are apparently on a different planet. No doubt the good sisters will also have Fr. Richard Rohr as a speaker? Or would he be too traditionalist?

  40. majuscule says:

    acardnal– thanks for the link to the video. I was only able to watch for about 2 minutes. When she went into the inner child emerging from the womb thing I got side tracked doing a google search for her stand on abortion.

    In a book by someone named Lee Penn, Hubbard envisions a future (New Age?) “when every child born is wanted, chosen and adored. Birth defects are a nightmare of the past.”

    Also, “Your adolescence will be a joy. You will be androgynous. You will choose to create another being only on very special occasions when the whole community of natural Christs sees the requirement.”

    Wow, and people complain about NFP!

  41. PostCatholic says:

    We Unitarian Universalists often are accused of having lightweight theology and faddish ideas. There’s some truth in that, as in all stererotypes. But this to me Hubbard is proffering the sort of kooky, the stuff of Adult Ed evening courses at the community center. If you get something out of it and a new approach to viewing your problems, fine, but the description you have above is not the sort of thing I think religious professionals should take seriously.

    I had a look at the history of our Ware Lecture, given at our annual General Assembly and I suppose somewhat akin to the “keynote address” to the LCWR. They are not always people who share our faith, but people bearing ideas that bear deeper reflection within our movement. Here’s some what I found:

    Maria Hinojosa, 2012, Senior Correspondent for NOW on PBS.[1]
    Karen Armstrong, 2011, Former Catholic nun and Comparative Religions expert
    Van Jones, 2008, Environmental/Youth Employment activist (that doesn’t do him justice)
    Rashid Khalidi, 2007, Director of Columbia University’s School of International Affairs
    Mary Oliver, 2006, Poet, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize
    Julian Bond, 2003, Chairman, NAACP, cofounder, SNCC, first President, Southern Poverty Law Center
    Stephen Lewis, 2002, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS
    Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, 2001, Senior Minister at Riverside Church (UCC) Manhattan
    Going back further, some other names I saw were Norman Lear, Marion Wright Edelman,Kurt Vonnegut, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, May Sarton, Elliot Richardson, Alvin Toffler, Martin Luther King, Linus Pauling, Henry Steele Commager, Max Lerner, Reinhold Niebuhr and Jane Addams.

    Now, I realize none of these are heroes to traditional Catholics; indeed it’s rather intentionally a laundry list of the liberal intelligentsia of several decades. But I do think there’s a qualitative difference between the people who’ve given our analogous address and that of the LCWR. I really doubt that we can “book bigger names” than what we’re continuously told is the leadership of “80% of American nuns.” The people we have been listening to had something to say worth hearing, criticizing, debating and occasionally acting upon. I have no idea what one does with Regenopause, and I really doubt I’m being chauvinistic to say it won’t matter. There is tons of worthwhile liberal feminist theory which incorporates religious thought and is worth attention and responses. Why bother with the nonsense?

  42. CharlesG says:

    Evolution? Survival of the fittest? Let’s see whether these far out orders or more orthodox orders of sisters survive in the long run…

  43. yatzer says:

    “Our recent presidential election clearly reflects the evolutionary shift that we have been talking about and sensing. Many of us appreciate that President Elect Obama is already a universal person, transcending race, and striving for a world that works for everyone.” From Ms. Hubbard’s blog in November 2008.
    I was surfing around while watching men’s beach volleyball and found this. It is scary to me.

  44. Tradster says:

    “…of Christ in evolution, of God in evolution.”
    Am I misreading that or is she claiming God is still evolving?

  45. PA mom says:

    So instead of discussing how they can stay the course of Jesus’ plan so that they can be regenerated in heaven with God, they wasting precious time discussing and listening to this. It is truly as if they have forgotten the existence of heaven, and this is the only thing that they can understand to keep going on after their time is finished, not their souls, but just this meaningless babble.

  46. anna 6 says:

    So is she scheduled to speak before or after the presentation on the LCWR’s plans to celebrate Pope Benedict’s proposed “Year of Faith” and the new evangelization.

    Wait, you mean they are not doing anything with those topics?

  47. Random Friar says:

    This is nothing more than standard (and erroneous) process theology, with less thinking and more fluff.

  48. contrarian says:

    Yes, this is all terrible.

    But more than that, it’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for them. I’m amazed at the willingness to hide behind vagaries. There’s something so undignified and cowardly about the language and arguments they adopt. So much fluff. So much indeterminate terminology and phrasing.

    I’d respect them so much more if they just came clean. Man up, Sisters! Embrace your heresies with boldness!

    Instead, we get the suggestion that some people hope and some don’t. Vague, fluffy junk.

    Cowards.

  49. Michelle F says:

    Rome should have put an end to the influence of Barbara Marx Hubbard and people like her inside the Church decades ago. Holy cow! Why, oh why does Rome dawdle?!

  50. Elizabeth D says:

    In a new-age EnlightenNext magazine interview Barbara Marx Hubbard explains what she means by “regenopause” in the context of explaining a weird sexual “mysticism”.
    Fair warning, her explanations of “regenerative sex” with her “partner” (apparently, a development of sex beyond “procreative” and “recreational” stages) are immodest and sort of explicit and not for the queasy.
    http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j30/hubbard.asp

    “When a woman in her menopausal years is overcome by a profound impulse to co-create and to self-evolve, this signals a next phase in the life cycle of the feminine. I asked for a word that would describe what I was going through in my postmenopausal years—the internal liberation, as well as the desire for co-creation—and the word just flashed: regenopause.

    Regenopause happens when the woman gets so turned on to her creativity and her life purpose that it starts to activate her at the cellular level. When an increased spiritual desire to participate in evolution crosses over into the aging process, it sends a signal that says, “We’re not finished, folks. We’re not ready to go yet. It would be a waste of evolutionary time to die now because look what it took to get us here!”

    Our species is being asked to self-evolve, or we will devolve and die. And I think that the regenopausal woman who is activated by this life purpose is, perhaps, the missing link in the story. So many women are entering menopause, so many women are turned on, and our culture is finally open enough to call us forth without trying to destroy us. It’s the first time in modern history that we can even begin to see the potential of the “feminine co-creator.” We haven’t seen this full-scale woman until now because, in our culture, women haven’t been allowed to pursue this except in a very narrow way. So regenopause transforms menopause into a new and open-ended life cycle, which doesn’t have an existing lid, or an existing label, or a social image of itself. “

  51. I’m watching her 1984 speech. More than what she’s saying, I notice the unruly din in the background; or rather, in the foreground. How many people were actually listening to her?

  52. Iowa Mike says:

    Father Z,

    The reason the bishop was excluded is simple….simple logic; the devil took the last seat.

  53. digdigby says:

    Contrarian-
    “Embrace your heresies with boldness! ”

    These are NOT heresies. Heresy invariably takes some element of truth and makes it central, excluding other aspects of truth (for instance making God’s omnipotence central to the exclusion of God’s love. There is not ONE important aspect of Catholic teaching in the above – it is truly Satanic gibberish. Teilhard de Chardin was not a Catholic heretic for the same reason. His ‘teachings’ were ‘wholly original’ which to me is the very definition of Satanic.

  54. Bastiat Fan says:

    How about we all pitch in to get Barbara “Bongwater” Hubbard an MRI for Christmas? Anyone?

  55. Cathy says:

    This is beyond creepy and eerie! I can’t help but think of the poor souls in the cult who committed suicide in band uniform capes believing they would be picked up by a space ship hidden by a comet.

  56. fvhale says:

    I find the day’s worth of comments over at Fishwrap rather meager. I think most readers cannot get a grip on what the Keynote Speaker speaks.

    Here is what someone else said about Teilhard de Chardin just a few years ago. This seems to express a better grasp of Teilhard’s ideas, and it is shows more of a real “kindred spirit”:

    “So our address to God becomes an address to ourselves:
    God invites us to join with him,
    to leave behind the ocean of evil, of hatred, violence, and selfishness
    and to make ourselves known,
    to enter into the river of his love….
    We ourselves, with our whole being,
    must be adoration and sacrifice,
    and by transforming our world,
    give it back to God.
    The role of the priesthood is
    to consecrate the world
    so that it may become a living host,
    a liturgy:
    so that the liturgy may not be
    something alongside the reality of the world,
    but that the world itself shall become
    a living host,
    a liturgy.
    This is also the great vision of
    Teilhard de Chardin:
    in the end we shall achieve
    a true cosmic liturgy,
    where the cosmos becomes
    a living host.
    And let us pray the Lord to help us become
    priests in this sense,
    to aid in the transformation of the world,
    in adoration of God,
    beginning with ourselves.
    That our lives may speak of God,
    that our lives may be a true liturgy,
    an announcement of God,
    a door through which the distant God
    may become the present God,
    and a true giving of ourselves to God.

    (source)

    I doubt that few of those who attend the Keynote will be able to say what it was about, really. I myself have attended a conference with a “futurist” keynote speaker (Kurzweil). It felt more like an opening act meant to entertain or distract participants. The real issue at the LCWR conference is not Hubbard or Teilhard de Chardin, but what is the LCWR going to do now in regard to their relationship with the hierarchical leadership of the Church. Hubbard is not going to be able to help them with that, but she could provide an hour of interesting distraction.

  57. Filipino Catholic says:

    What is this I don’t even…???

    She sounds like one of those freaky flower-power types high on Cannabis sativa. Noosphere? Are you kidding me?! Since when did the earth “evolve” a collective consciousness? And that diagram… something about it reminds me of Sc**nt*l*gy. Sancta Maria Mater Purissima, ora pro nobis!

    AD IESV PER MARIA,
    Filipino Catholic.

  58. JonPatrick says:

    It seems at some point the Vatican is going to have to cut the LCWR adrift. They seem to be bending over backward to give the LCWR a chance to repent and return to the teachings of the Church but they seem to be unlikely to do that. I only hope that once it becomes clear that the leadership is not going to repent, that they move quickly to establish an orthodox leadership group for the women religious.

  59. Kerry says:

    “Hope, cooperation, alignment…”, plus caster, camber and tire rotation, and a 16 point check of fluids, hoses, AC system, and the installation of a new, glow in the dark universal species figurine! All for $29.95.

  60. Some days you have to wonder whether the leaders of banal movements like this really believe their own inanity; or if secretly, deep down inside, they just enjoy playing with people’s minds and testing at what level of ridiculousness they can still control their followers!

  61. jessicahoff says:

    Well, no one can say they don’t now know where this sort of disobedience leads. Do you suppose they picked up one of those Jack Chick tracts about the so-called pagan roots of catholicism and thought: ‘hey, that’s real cool, let’s go do it that way?’ Or is there a logical explanation for why anyone with three working brain cells takes this baloney straight. if you hadn’t assured us you weren’t making it up, I’d have thought it a very clever spoof, but a bit over the top. But this is real Goodness me!

  62. AvantiBev says:

    From her Foundation’s website: “As women experience menopause, anticipating decades of fruitful years ahead, the realization dawns that they are entering the greatest period of freedom and creativity in their lives. The opportunity to give birth to their authentic feminine self opens, and often, new work in and for the world presents itself.
    We call this new phase of life Regenopause… a pause in the life cycle of the older woman when the possibility of remaking herself by choosing from her deepest impulse becomes evident.”

    BEV’S COMMENT: As an actress in my 50’s I would rather this woman gave talks to groups of young screenwriters, ad copy writers, and playwrights. Yep, I feel more ready than ever before to tackle some meaty roles but as we – ahem- veteran actresses look around, it seems most writers believe women’s life expectancy is 35 and if she does survive past that she does nothing interesting and is probably only fit for a Depends or Aricept commercial!

    So Barb, lay off the nuns’ convention and give it to the Writers Guild with both barrels, girl!

    May the souls of Helen Hayes and Lillian Gish, intercede for us aging actresses that we might prove as “fruitful” and “creative”as they were in their 80’s & 90’s! AMEN. AH REGENOPAUSEY WOMEN!

  63. PennCatholic says:

    Anyone know how we can follow the event?

    Its funny that their theme is about humans regenopausing through technology, and that they bash the magisterium for being outdated, yet the USCCB General Assembly is streamed live online – LCWR doesn’t even have a Twitter account.

  64. Supertradmum says:

    This is all nonsense closer to Gene Roddenberry than to de Chardin, who, I hope Catholics realize is way off on evolution and the Cosmic Christ.

    Anyway, I have the answer for all these ladies and is it 42. Maybe they will invited me to give a talk now.

    42

  65. Trevor says:

    I actually think Teilhard would be pounding his head on his desk if he heard this woman speak (much less consider her a “kindred spirit”).

    Teilhard is really a mixed bag. Cardinal Ratzinger has praised his work numerous times as a first step in trying to reconcile evolution with Catholic theology (although he criticized Teilhard for using language that was “too biological”). So I certainly think there’s a place for his work in Catholic theology, but it would certainly have to be refined and parts would even have to be struck out that are not in accord with developments in evolutionary thought and Catholic theology.

    In my experience, many followers of Teilhard fail to do this. They also seem to have a limited knowledge of evolutionary biology, and seem to think that his theories are also the ones to which evolutionary biologists now cling. This is absolutely not true. Secular evolutionary biologists could care less for Teilhard (although they might acknowledge his contributions to anthropology). According to modern evolutionary theory, evolution is not a guided process, there is no “Omega Point” to where evolution is headed. So it baffles my mind to see Teilhardian theologians act like their conclusions are so self-evident and supported by all the new evolutionary theories, and that now we can have a completely rationalist belief in God. Absurd. Theistic evolution might be in accord with reason, but in order to see that one still needs to make a prior act of faith in the Trinune God who reveals, and especially have faith in Christ-the Incarnate Word whom through all things were made.

    Teilhard was fundamentally a man of faith, and his cosmology was fundamentally Christological. And “Christ” for Teilhard actually meant that distinct eternal Triune Person who became a man 2000 years ago, suffered, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven. For this woman, “Christ” seems to be some indeterminate reality, a quasi-pantheistic source of goodness and order in the world. This is not Teilhard’s Christ. She’s removed the Cornerstone on which Teilhard’s worldview rests.

    This type of Teilhardian scholarship is pretty similar to a lot of modern Catholic Feminist scholarship: completely turned in upon itself. Many refuse to acknowledge external authority (both in the the Church and theological circles), and thus unwilling to accept critical examination of their work. Thus, you’re left with a closed-off group parroting old theories, that long ago lost touch with reality. And sooner or later, the entire endeavor becomes irrelevant, because it no longer speaks to the Church. And any legitimate insights that Teilhard or feminist scholarship could have offered to theology are lost within a sea of bad.

  66. Supertradmum says:

    sorry invite-no d…and I love St. Louis, where my mom is from and we all in the family are great Cardinal fans (well, there are two hold-outs; one for the Braves and one for the Tigers). Why did they have to choose symbolically one of the most Catholic cities in America? Having said that, the Midwest is infamous for radical feminist orders. So sad.

  67. Widukind says:

    Dah! Now I get it. I was having a hard time grasping what Regenopause meant.
    I thought she was making a political statement about detoxing from Ronald
    Regan! Well, that might have been a bit saner than what it really is.

  68. Midwest St. Michael says:

    @ Elizabeth D,

    “Regenopause happens when the woman gets so turned on to her creativity and her life purpose that it starts to activate her at the cellular level. ”

    This sounds like the first phase of lust to me.

    MSM

  69. Indulgentiam says:

    postcatholic–“There is tons of worthwhile liberal feminist theory which incorporates religious thought” —–name one. All feminist theory is just so much self aggrandizement that leads to the exact problem we have here with the nuns gone completely off the hormonal deep end. To the point were they want to reinvent menopause. Which is really interesting to me b/c i did a 2 year rotation in an inner city psych ward where we did see women present with “Altered Mental Status” refers to general changes in brain function, such as confusion, memory loss, loss of alertness, loss of orientation, defects in judgment or thought, poor regulation of emotions, and disruptions in perception, psychomotor skills, and behavior. Attributed to the cessation of estradiol and progesterone production, namely; menopause. The MD’s had a more common tag for these cases “Hormonal Upheaval” So basically the hierarchy of the LCWR is being run by people incapable of well reasoned thought. That explains their propensity to invent alternate realities. i believe that falls under the Dx; Delusion. But then again that describes every feminist i’ve ever met. They are single minded in their quest to prove their own self worth. And entirely miss the fact that no one, anywhere understands their value better than the Almighty.

  70. Gail F says:

    Poor Teilhard. From what I can tell, he was a faithful priest with a lot of new/weird/wild ideas, and HE knew he was faithful (or at least thought sincerely he was). There have been plenty such in history — not every brilliant mind gets everything right. He was very hurt by being silenced but unlike the LCWR he obeyed. Many of the people who read him don’t understand him, or go off on tangents (which was one reason people weren’t allowed to read him). Much like Carl Jung, a brilliant man who had many great insights but some nutty ones as well — and whose work is equally popular among New Agey types who read what they like into him and no more. Come to think of it, Jung was very popular for decades in Catholic circles, and is embraced by the LCWR types. Back to Teilhard, I don’t think he would appreciate many of his admirers.

  71. acardnal says:

    Bishop Sheen mentions Jung in many of his talks but not kindly as I recall. But this is diverting from LCWR and their choice of guest speakers over the years.

    There is and has been too much New Age talk and practices (e.g. the Enneagram and centering prayer that doesn’t center on Christ but themselves and their empty minds) and gnosticism in the LCWR leadership and some of its members over the last decades. It has to be expunged or meet its canonical demise. Return to Jesus, sacred scripture and sacred Tradition.

  72. magnificatlady says:

    Supertradmum: The answer 42! LOL!!!
    I think it is likely that someone will need to hit the “improbability button” for these woman to actually live as Catholics once again!
    At this point, I wonder when will the sneezing begin?

  73. Supertradmum says:

    magnificatlady, well I am glad you got the reference. We all need some humor. Maybe it is a generation thing, as we all read and watched (and, at first, listened on the radio) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I had one person tell me years ago that they hated it as it made fun of their religion of sci-fi. Good thing, too. Where is Zaphod Beeblebrox when we need him to crash this convention?

  74. bhgmdjd says:

    I am going to be pilloried for this but here goes. First: yes she has wandered far off the reservation wherever she started. Second: no she does not espouse Catholic truth. But that does not mean she does not say things we should pay attention to. There is a new ease of connection that should make us more aware of each other; the unneeded dress I buy does take food from the starving child in Sudan. Entering my 60s I do have a new phase of life and new gifts to give. As an anthropologist much of de Chardin’s work led me to the very heart of the Church; even Kreeft and Ratzinger were influenced by him. Face it. We ALL get it wrong in part. Certainly the presence of Barbara Maxwell as a speaker at LCWR is very troublesome but perhaps we need not be so smug in how we react…

  75. Supertradmum says:

    bhgmdjd, if you are wrong in one part of doctrine or dogma, you are a heretic. Sorry, either take the whole ball of wax, or none. We must conform our minds to the mind of Christ and His Church. There are parts of Chardin which have been censored. Period. We do not have the luxury to get it wrong in parts. So, which parts? Abortion, contraception, irregular marriages, the Nature of Christ in the Trinity, the nature and establishment of the Church, the priesthood of men, the dogmas concerning the Theotokos?

    We have a duty to be objective and not subjective about the Truth. Sadly, too many of the good nuns have fallen into subjectivity and left the simple path of obedience.

    I am not smug, in fact, I cannot take my salvation for granted.
    But when the day of judgement comes, I pray, love, go to the sacrament, fast, repent and read the Truth from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church so that I am with the sheep and not the goats.

    If you are not with Rome, you are not with Christ.

  76. Kathleen10 says:

    I won’t pillory you BHGMDJD, not at all dear.

    I hear you on the new phase of life. I get it. I’m in my 50’s and in my own new phase. Life is change and some of it is pretty freeing and exciting! The way we view things can change. That’s good.
    I don’t know who de Chardin is, so I can’t comment on that aspect.
    We do all get it wrong sometimes. True.

    But the presence of Barbara Maxwell is more than troublesome, in my opinion. If the video we saw on this website is a correct representation of who this woman is and what she is about, she is so far out there, she is invisible. It might as well have been radical Nazism she was espousing, or Tantric Yoga, or any of the other complete and total spiritual and philosophical dead-ends that have passed for truth since, well…forever! Gullible, easily led, under-informed, silly people, often fall for this nonsense. Can you imagine the reality of a soul going not on to the Beatific Vision, but to Hell, because they followed and believed any of this trash? She teaches ERROR, and when one teaches error in the spiritual realm one can alter realities after life for other people. That is far too serious a matter to file under “to be taken lightly”.

    It is not smug to deride and denigrate any foolishness like what we heard a few days ago on the Barbara Marx Hubbard clip. We have seen what politeness and genteel behavior sometimes will accomplish. At a tea party, much, in a battle with principalities and powers, such as the one WE are currently fighting? Nothing! We’ve got to start calling it what it is, identifying it ourselves, pointing it out to others! We have got to put on the armor of God, be our own little version of St. Paul, St. Joan of Arc, St. Michael, and take it on as best we can!

    Souls are at stake my dear. And we only have this one brief physical experience on earth, to do our part, and meet our God, present to Him our little efforts on His behalf. We can’t minimize the dangers by being polite. People like Barbara Marx Hubbard will perhaps go to Hell. We ought not want others to ignorantly and happily follow her.

  77. Kathleen10 says:

    OOPS, those who know me know this is my weakness, sending off my comment before editing.

    I meant “BARBARA MARX”, not Barbara Maxwell. where did that come from!

  78. jaykay says:

    “Where is Zaphod Beeblebrox when we need him to crash this convention?”

    I’m sure he wouldn’t even attract much attention, God knows – and the two heads would be useful to handle the sensory overload of Ms. Marx Hubbard’s address (since just one would probably explode).

    [Arthur] Incredible! The people, the… things!

    [Ford] The things are also people.

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