Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was born on May 1, 1881, in Sarcenat, Orcines, France, as the fourth of eleven children of a librarian and a naturalist. He inherited a double surname from his father, who was descended from an ancient family of magistrates. He was educated by Jesuits and entered the novitiate in 1899. He studied literature, philosophy and theology in France and England, and was ordained a priest in 1911. He also developed a passion for geology and paleontology, and participated in several scientific expeditions in Europe, Asia and Africa. He was involved in the discovery of Peking Man, a fossil of an early human ancestor, in China in 1929. Teilhard had a vision of the universe as evolving toward a final spiritual unity that he called the Omega Point. He saw human history as a process of convergence and complexification that would lead to the emergence of a collective consciousness or a "noosphere". He tried to reconcile his scientific insights with his Christian faith, and wrote several books and essays on the relationship between science and religion. His most famous work is The Phenomenon of Man, which he completed in 1938 but was not published until after his death. In this book, he proposed a new interpretation of evolution that integrated matter, life and spirit as different aspects of the same reality. Teilhard's writings were controversial and met with opposition from both the scientific and the ecclesiastical authorities. His views were considered heretical by some Catholic theologians, who accused him of pantheism, relativism and modernism. He was forbidden by his superiors to publish his religious works during his lifetime, and some of his books were placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Vatican. He was also criticized by some scientists for being too speculative and metaphysical, and for mixing science with theology. Despite these difficulties, Teilhard gained a wide following among intellectuals and spiritual seekers who were inspired by his vision of cosmic evolution and human destiny. Teilhard died of a heart attack on April 10, 1955, in New York City, where he had been living since 1951. He was buried at the Saint Andrew's Jesuit Cemetery in Hyde Park, New York. His legacy includes a strong environmental movement, an understanding of the divine that resonates with science, and multiple movements in cosmic spirituality. He was cited by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si' on the environment in 2015.