Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (1881 - 1955)

A visionary's influence still felt today
by Joe Orso

In the 1960s and 70s, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's writings--from the scientific The Phenomenon of Man to the mystical The Mass on the World--fit the optimistic, forward-looking mood of the times. This Jesuit paleontologist, philosopher, and theologian, who influenced college students and Vatican II participants alike, was one of the rare literati who reached beyond academia and into the mainstream, at least for a while.

It's safe to say that most college students today, even at Jesuit schools, aren't familiar with Teilhard, one of the most influential Jesuits of the twentieth century. "When I started teaching Teilhard, everybody on campus knew who Teilhard was," says Fr. Thomas King, SJ, who has been teaching about the Frenchman at Georgetown University since 1968. "Now it's a name they haven't heard of, and you have to introduce it."

Teilhard's reputation has ebbed and flowed with the times. During his life, his writings were suppressed by some of his Jesuit superiors and the Vatican; his attempts to reconcile evolution with original sin and other Catholic doctrines were viewed as a threat to orthodoxy.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (third from right) spent many of his Jesuit years as a paleontologist and geologist in China and Mongolia. His attempts to reconcile science with religion faced opposition from the Church.

Soon after Teilhard's death in 1955, his writings, published by friends, developed a reception that the visionary himself never did. But his name recognition has dwindled in recent decades. Bookstores at seven Jesuit universities could find no books by Teilhard being used in courses this fall; only two courses at these institutions used his books last year.

Teilhard surfaced in a chapter of Ignatian Humanism, a recent book by Ronald Modras, theology professor at Saint Louis University. "I wanted to keep his name alive," says Modras, who notes that lasting fame relies in part on how someone is remembered as a symbol. But there are no shrines to science and religion in Teilhard's name; his body remains in a Jesuit cemetery at a former Jesuit novitiate (see next page). The Jesuits, Modras says, "don't blow their own horn."

Though Teilhard is less well known today than in the past, his ideas continue to evolve. James Landry, chair of the natural science department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, asks a question of scientists regarding Teilhard's work: "Has his time come and gone, or do we need to look at his writings again in terms of new things we know?"

Landry's own career begins to answer the question. He encountered Teilhard in the 1970s as an undergraduate but focused elsewhere as he pursued a PhD and career in science. But ten years ago he became reacquainted with Teilhard and now uses him in his "Complexity in Nature" and "Science, Theology, and the Future" courses. Last spring, Landry helped start Loyola Marymount's Teilhard Society, which fosters dialogue between science and religion.

One of Teilhard's ideas that raises both scientific and theological questions is his notion of the "within" of things, the idea that particles of matter have an innate quality bringing them together. As the particles aggregate, a new energy emerges. This explains how what Teilhard called the noosphere, the realm of human consciousness, emerged from the biosphere. " Teilhard seems to be talking about the evolution of consciousness and soul," says Fr. Joseph Fortier, SJ, a biologist at Saint Louis University (see page 2). "It's as though the within, this propensity to unite, is the pre-soul or proto-soul." Fortier, who teaches a course on evolution and Christian theology, sees Teilhard as one of his principal spiritual mentors and lauds his role in helping Catholicism to embrace evolution.

As to why Teilhard's popularity has decreased, Fortier speculates that the Frenchman's dense writings clash with the age of immediacy. He also notes that Teilhard worked in two fields often hostile to each other.

"Darwin was martyred by the religious establishment, so he's a martyr for the scientific establishment," says Fortier. "Teilhard was martyred by both establishments, so he doesn't have the hero appeal that Darwin does. But anybody who deals with evolution and religion is on the back of Teilhard, who's the giant. He's really the architect of the evolution-religion dialogue."

Teilhard's words will remain in at least one place. At Georgetown University's Edward B. Bunn Intercultural Center, King helped secure Teilhard's words on a prominent wall: "The age of nations has passed. It remains for us now, if we do not wish to perish, to set aside the ancient prejudices and build the earth."

A Mark of Respect

50 years after his death, Teilhard de Chardin's spirit is alive
by Thierry Meynard, SJ, and Joe Orso

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, is buried in Hyde Park, New York, on the grounds of a former Jesuit novitiate. At the cemetery there, in a field bordered by trees, 150 people gathered at his grave, 50 years to the day after his death on April 10, 1955.

A service at Teilhard's grave site was the culmination of a recent conference hosted by Fordham University's philosophy department.

Among them was Korean bishop Vincent Ri Pyung-ho, who has translated much of Teilhard's work from French into Korean. He paid respects to a man whose life has enlightened his own by kissing the earth in front of Teilhard's tomb. Neither Ri nor the others who had gathered had known Teilhard, but they had found in him a master, a prophet, and a poet.

From April 7 to 10, the French and American Chardin associations hosted events that drew about 2,000 people from five continents to Fordham University in New York to celebrate a man whose work continues to evolve.

Teilhard, a geologist, paleontologist, philosopher, and theologian, has inspired social and physical scientists alike to move beyond specializations. He solved many puzzles regarding the first humans by studying them not as an isolated phenomenon but in relation to the soil, vegetation, and other species. At the conference, scientists and others explained how Teilhard's holistic approach has helped them gather data from different disciplines into a coherent whole.

Lothar Schafer, professor of chemistry at the University of Arkansas, explained how Teilhard's thoughts about evolution mesh with new findings in quantum physics. Wangari Maathai, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, spoke of how Teilhard had helped inspire her work as a government minister in Kenya to empower her countrywomen.

"The Eucharist is celebrated in order to offer on the altar of the whole earth the world's work and suffering in the beautiful words of Teilhard de Chardin," wrote Pope John Paul II in Gift and Mystery. He was referring to prayers in Teilhard's The Mass on the World, which the latter had said 80 years earlier in the Gobi Desert, when he had run out of bread and wine and made the whole earth his altar.

Teilhard continues to draw together scientists, artists, environmentalists, diplomats, and theologians. The fact reflects Teilhard's life, in which diverse interests converged towards the Omega, Christ, the unique mystery in which everything is accomplished.

Fr. Thierry Meynard, SJ, is a professor of philosophy at Fordham University in New York. Joe Orso, a freelance writer in St. Louis, graduated from Fordham University and Columbia University's school of journalism.

Silenced by the Church, he had few friends when he died and was unknown by most scientists. Since his death, though, his ideas have animated the minds and hearts of many.

"Of all things the most difficult to contain is the expansion of an idea," Teilhard wrote. "It is enough for truth to appear just once, to a single mind. From that moment nothing can prevent its spreading until it lights up the world. For whatever is truer will come to light, and whatever is better will ultimately become reality."