Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was a world-renowned paleontologist. He played a major role in the finding and interpretation of Peking Man, received the Mendel Medal for his scientific accomplishments, and published numerous scientific treatises. During his lifetime, he was also recognized as one of the world’s foremost geologists.
And he was also a Jesuit priest, poet, and visionary whose philosophical work was banned from publication by the Catholic Church mostly because he disputed the literal interpretation of Genesis, proposing instead a poetic mix of religion and evolutionary science.
In Teilhard’s Struggle, Sister Kathleen Duffy argues that Teilhard’s views were often expressed metaphorically. Had they been published in his lifetime, they would have been clarified, revised, and accepted in some form by now.
As Duffy explains, Teilhard was someone in whom the vocations of science and religion fit well together and were nourished early on. His father, an amateur naturalist, encouraged his son’s interest in nature. As a boy, Teilhard collected rocks from Auvergne in France, where the family lived. Teilhard’s mother inspired her son with an awareness of the sacred. That sense was heightened when at age twelve he went to a Catholic boarding school, Notre Dame De Mongre, and was exposed to Thomas à Kempis’s classic Imitation of Christ. At the time, the school was the leading institution for the teaching of science, which was ideal for the budding scientist and priest.
In 1899, Teilhard entered the Society of Jesus
