INDEED.
I thought you might find this interesting. I don’t know if you’re much of a “Pope-watcher,” but looky here:
http://ncronline.org/news/ecology/pope-cites-teilhardian-vision-cosmos-living-host
The liberal Catholics are all aflutter about BXVI revealing his “inner Teilhard” during a recent Vespers speech. I think it relevant to _Caritas_ because of the encyclical’s notion of a progressive evolution of peoples into a global family and, later on, a universal fraternity. And, finally, into some sort of universal community or Unity.
What we haven’t been touching on in this thread is the signal importance given to “integral human DEVELOPMENT” in _Caritas_. One has to ask “development towards WHAT”? Here I can only suggest that Teilhard’s work might be key to understanding what’s going on here by giving some content to what that WHAT might be.
If you want it, here’s the 24 July Vespers speech on pdf. file (see pp.3-4):
www.stthomasmoreusc.org/bulletin/bulletin_20090802.pdf