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Drawn to Follow the Road of Fire: Teilhard and Struggle with Sr Kathleen Duffy SSJ | Ignatian Spirituality WA


Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to journey on retreat with a world expert on Teilhard de Chardin SJ, Sr Kathleen Duffy SSJ. She is coming to Perth via Zoom from Philadelphia in October 2021 to share her insights on one of the 20th Century’s most loved mystics. Local guides and spiritual directors will lead the retreat on the ground. Sr Kathy will present live for 4 hours/day.

The retreat takes place at St John of God Retreat Centre in Shoalwater Bay, WA. Please register your interest at kdretreat487@gmail.com. or contact us.

About Kathleen Duffy, SSJ, PhD

Kathleen Duffy, SSJ is Professor Emerita of Physics at Chestnut Hill College, Director of the Institute for Religion and Science at Chestnut Hill College, and serves on the advisory boards of the American Teilhard Association and Cosmos and Creation.

Kathleen is the editor of Teilhard Studies, a biannual publication of the American Teilhard Association. Her current research interest concerns the religious essays of Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the relationship of his synthesis to modern developments in science. She has published Teilhard’s Mysticism: Seeing the Inner Face of Evolution (Orbis 2014), Teilhard’s Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution (Orbis 2018), an edited volume of essays about Teilhard’s life and work entitled Rediscovering Teilhard’s Fire (St. Joseph’s University 2010), as well as several book chapters and articles about Teilhard. Kathleen also guides evening, weekend, and weeklong retreats on topics related to Teilhard’s life and work.

Who was Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (French: 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of the Peking Man. He conceived the vitalist idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving), and he developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of noosphere. Teilhard's ideas had a profound influence on the New Age movement.

Hardly anyone else has tried to bring together the knowledge of Christ and the idea of evolution as the scientist (paleontologist) and theologian Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., has done. ... His fascinating vision ... has represented a great hope, the hope that faith in Christ and a scientific approach to the world can be brought together. ... These brief references to Teilhard cannot do justice to his efforts. The fascination which Teilhard de Chardin exercised for an entire generation stemmed from his radical manner of looking at science and Christian faith together.
- Cardinal Christoph Schönborn wrote in 2007:[32]

Source: Wikipedia