Differences ...

... The Faith of Flannery O'Connor. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I was already out of college by the time Father Oakes entered seminary, but Teilhard was much discussed during my college years. I think the weakness in the materialist objection to Teilhard is that he does not exactly attribute consciousness to brute matter, but rather argues that, since consciousmess emerges from matter it must be a potential of matter in the first place. As for Original Sin, well Jesus presumably has dealt with that and "all will be well and all manner of thing will be well." Ms. Oates wisely opts out of most of this dispute, but as a 13th-century Catholic myself, I think it worth noting that the Church, prior to the Reformation, was a good deal less puritanical and misogynistic than it later became. See G. Chaucer and Hildegard von Bingen.