4 2

THE PRIEST WHO HAUNTSTHE CATHOEIC WORED

hts lifetime Pierre Teilhard de Chardiu, a French Jesuit,

was prohit)ited from put)(ishiny his uiwrtli()do.v theories. Noa% orer eight ijears after his

death, his many books are creating fierce controrersij and influencing thousands,

wclading some princes of his church meeting in Rome.

By JOHN KOBLER

When Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died in New York Cityeight years ago. the French Jesuit priest and paleontolo-

gist was little known outside a circle of fellow priests, scientists andfriends. Today he is a symbol of the winds of change that areblowing throughout Christendom. By attempting, in essays, booksand lectures, to reconcile and unify science and religion, he haskindled fiercer controversy within his church than any othermodern Catholic thinker.

At one extreme ofopinion Father Teilhard is acclaimed as "theSaint Thomas Aquinas of our age . . . a new Galileo . . . a greatscientist and a great servant of God." At the other extreme he isdenounced as "the Trojan horse of Catholicism," a man with dan-gerous theories in which "maximum seduction coincides with max-imum aberration." The Holy Office of the Vatican banned Teil-hard's works from Catholic bookstores in 1957 (though some ig-nore the ban) and last year issued a nionitum [a formal warning]against exposing believers to the perils of Teilhardism. When PopeJohn convoked the Ecumenical Council last fall, however, he saiditstask was "to open the windows of the Church... bringing it intostep with modern times."

The council never openly referred to "the forbidden Jesuit," asone biographer calls Father Teilhard, But the flickerings of his in-fluence glinted beneath the polemics. They are likely to do so againduring the current sessions of the council, reconvened by PopePaul. An Italian expert on the council goes so far as to predict that[he outcome will either refiect the Teilhardian spirit or it will ac-complish nothing of importance.

Teilhard's influence extends far beyond the domain of Catholictheology. The tola! sales of his 10 published books run close to amillion copies. Organizations of dedicated followers labor to in-crease the boom. In France the Association of the Friends of Teil-hard de Chardin, boasting a thousand members, sponsors lectures,symposiums and week-long conventions. Other Teilhardist groups,some of them verging on cultism, fiourish in Italy, Germany, Eng-land, Belgium and South America. The Teilhard bibliographies listmore than 1200 titles. The Paris Museum of Natural History plans toopen three rooms full of Teilhard documents and memorabilia. TheFrench mint struck a medallion in his honor, bearing his profileand his mystical axiom: "Everything that rises converges." Despite

the right-wing hostility to the Jesuit, the Vatican pavilion at theBrussels World's Fair included his portrait in a gallery of the cen-tury's greatest men. Even the Communists are trying to exploitTeilhard; one of his books will soon be published in Moscow.

Teilhard has become celebrated only after his death because theSociety of Jesus forbade him to publish his works during his life-time. They were saved from oblivion by tbe devotion of his fol-lowers, particularly a woman named Jeanne Mortier, who stillguards a cupboard full of liis unpublished manuscripts. Barredfrom teaching or holding ecclesiastical office, Teilhard spent mostof his life in exile, often anguished, but always submissive, free ofrancor and deeply devout.

Teilhard, who died at the age of 73, came of an ancient, wealthyand patrician family. He was a superb physical specimen, tall andsinewy, with the profile of a falcon hewn from rock, but softened bya luminous smile and glowing, gray-blue eyes. He loved people."The world is round," he used to say, "so that friendship may cir-cle it." A certain sartorial elegance is one of the few little vanities apriest may indulge. Teilhard, however, utterly indifferent to ex-ternals, was usually rumpled, and his trousers—for he preferredto wear trousers without the cassock—seldom met his shoe tops.Though he did not actively proselytize, the power of his convictionand his personal radiance fortified the faith of waverers and movednonbelievers to join the church.

Intellectually sophisticated, an aristocrat by birth and breeding,Teilhard yet retained a childlike simplicity and directness, anaivetC', in his social relations which encouraged opportunists touse him. He could not bring himself to condemn any man. Chidedfor associating with an e.vceptionally repulsive character, he re-phed, "No doubt he has other, valuable qualities." A youngerbrother, Gabriel, an air-force officer at the outset of World War II,wrote to him in angry despair over France's defeat, "The soldiers of1940 were afraid to die." The Jesuit's answer passed Gabriel's un-derstanding: "They felt they had another and better task to fulfill."

The intelligentsia of Paris, New York and Shanghai lionized Teil-hard, and their salons became forums for the dissemination of hisideas. But he was also accessible to the lowliest student who wantedhis guidance. Gay and witty, despite painful inner conflicts, he hada propensity for Impish clerical jests which sometimes shocked

Pholoijraphs bij f'/iili/i/ic

4 3

ASACHllDHKAM IMDKKW^ IN r o THOUGHTOF;\"(X)DOFIRON."

ll I III I I'll "I I rilti-iril, iiijf / / '>, liiitiij.-i

I'irl/i/i/iire ill Fraiice'.i Aurergiie.

starchy eliurehmcn. Noting the prim,dcsicciilcd oKl iiKililu who crowtled aPiiris Jcsiiil cliapL'l when lie cclelir;ileilMavi there, lie c\claiiiK'tl. "Lord. I,ord,wlicrcNcr do ^'ou seek Your briiles!" Of[he iXTseuuled l7tli-ci;nlLiry aslronoincr.Ciiililco. whose discoveries alioul the solarsystem the Oilholic Church did not ac-cept for 200 years, he said, " I keep hisbust in my room, because the churcli oweshim at least thai much."

Among Teilhard's achievements as apaleontologist was the eodiseovery of theTamous "Peking man," one or ihe earliestknown hominids or manlike creatures.(ActualK. fossil measurements proved"Peking man" to be a woman, and Teil-hard named her "Nelly.") M was from hisrare eonibination of scientific and spiri-tual insights [hilt Teilhard distilled hisconlro\ersi.il theory.

For limi no unbridgeable gap existedbetween science and religion. He viewedthem as but two [hreads of [he sameseamless garmen[, uvo aspeets of God.

For 40 years manuscripts developingthat synthesis flowed from Teilhard'spen. They teemed with propositionsbound to strike rigid Catholic theologiansas heretical. According [o his centraltheme, "Evolution is a general condition

to which all theories, all hypotheses allsystems must bow and which tliey mustsatisfy if they are to be thinkable andtrue. Evolution is a light illuminating allfaets, a curve that all line^ must follow."

In his lirst book published. The Plie-iioniciioii of Man, which was completedin 1940, TeilharJ depicts evolution as theprogress of the universe—a progress di-vinely conceived and therefore irresisti-ble—from elemental matter through theadvent of life, animal consciousness andhuman [houEh[ toward God. "Man didnot descend from an ape," he was fondof saying. "He aseended." Nine booksfollowed, among [hem his lyrie, passion-a[e spiri[ual testimony, written in 1927,Till- Diviiw Milieu.

Widely translated, they have achieveda eomniercial success in both Europe andthe U.S. which astounds the publishingworld, for they make formidable demandson the reader. Pope John once com-plained. "Why did he have to write suchdifficuli things?" At times Teilhard pur-sues his arguments along paths so laby-rinthine that he loses the reader alto-gether. His brilliant style compounds thediPRculties by intermingling the tones ofpoetry, mc[aphysies, science, mysticism,philosophy and Scripture. He frequently

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coins words and gives fiimiliiir onesspecial meanings. To aid bewilderedreaders, his French publisher recentlybrought out a lexicon of his neologisms,such as "hoininisaliun: the progressiveniovemen[ of nonreflcctivc animal lifetowards refleciive human life." Ye[ by theend of 1962 Tin; Phenomenon of Man hadsold 140,000 copies in France and 50,000in the United States.

Curiosity partly explains the anomaly,a curiosity stimulated by the long sup-pression of the manuscripts, the aura ofmystery surrounding Teilhard's privatelife, and the resulting body of legend.Snobbishness is another factor. Teilhardhas become Tashionable. Dropping thename is a ploy of cocktail-party one-up-manship. Casually displayed on a living-room table, his works impart highbrowstatus. But the biggest stimulus to popu-lar success has been the torrent of booksand articles about Teilhard.

At New York's Catholic FcrdhamUniversity, Dr. Louis Marks, AssociateProfessor of Biology, conducts a seminaron Teilhard. His personal enthusiasm isunqualified. "Teilhardism will becomethe church's new philosophical system,"he predicts. But in deference to ihenioni-iiini. Dr. Marks exhorts his students toapproach the subject with prudence. Notlong ago a waggish sophomore broughta plaster gargoyle to class. "Here she is,"he announced. "Meet Prudence."

Catholic dognta does not require be-lievers to accept Genesis literally. It permitsa variety of theories, including evolution,providing they recognize Scripture asdivine revelation. Fifteen centuries agoSaint Augustine advised Christians notto consider the Bible a scientific text,and his own commentary on Genesis isoften cited to show that evolution canbe compatible with orthodoxy. Never-theless, in practice evolution has longbeen a risky area for Catholics, becauseits early proponents were predominantlymaterialists who dismissed God from theuniverse. In fact, not until Pope PiusXll's encyclical letter of 1950, HiimaniGeneris, did the church explicitly autho-rize Catholic scholars to explore evolu-tion, and then only as an unprovenhypothesis.

in Teilhard's system, however, evolu-tion is no hypothesis. It is the key to thewhole meaning of existence. It operatesnot through blind chance as [he scientificmaterialists argued, but purposefully, anirreversible process planned by God. Atwofold principle underlies this process:Nothing can appear that has not beenprepared from all eternity, and the uni-verse is always at work perfecting itsell.

The starting point of evolution fromprimordial matter Teilhard called Alpha,and the Goal, the Omega Point. Omegais, in effect, God, but Alpha also containsGod. Thus, the universe began in Godand will return to Him. "Man," Teilhardwrote, "is not a static center of the world,as he long assumed, but the axis andarrow of evolution, which is somethingfiner." So far the march of evolution has

4 4

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r

«,s' (I ioy /le .sought secrets in s/ars and stones. His nir/.-s ami telescope, snrei/ hi/ his faiiiit//, irratl his earti/ peuchmit for science.

advanced through three major stages—pre-life. life and thought. Hypcr-lifc. forwhich Tcilhard believed man to be nowripe, lies ahead. " . . . humanity has justentered what is probably the grcalesttransformation it has ever known. , . .Somcihing is happening in the structureof human consciousness. It is anotherspecies of lire that is just beginning."

From hyper-life, Teilhard prophesied,with the boundless optimism ihat coloredhis vision, humanity individually andcollectively will eventually cEiter intoultimate, perfect union with God at theOmega Point, and so will conclude theepic drama of evolution. Nothing, he felt,could prevent that final consummation.

As the main forces of evolution, Tcil-hard posited two kinds of energy. Thefirst kind, "tangential" energy, acts uponwhat he termed the "Outside of Things."Scientists see the growth of the universeas a sequence of combinations: atomsforming molecules, molecules formingcells, cells forming plants and animals.

But the physical and chemical forcesIhat bring about these changes m;inu-Tacture no new energy. According to thelaws of thermodynamics, the new organ-ism expends its energy in heat and even-tually disintegrates. Physicists reckonthat the sun. for example, will consumeall its available hydrogen utoms in about15 billion years, then cool off and die. "A

rocket rising in the wake of time's arrowthat bursts only to be extinguished,"Teilhard reflected poetically, "an eddyrushing on the bosom of a descendingcurrent—such then must be our pictureof the world. So says science, and I be-lieve in science, but up to now has scienceever troubled to look at the world exceptfrom without?"

Teilhard rejected ttie prospect of theuniverse thus reduced to a cold, blackvoid, of evolution vanquished. God. hebelieved, could not have intended suclian end for his creation. There must existsome other kind of energy capable ofproducing higher forms ad inlinituni andthereby preventing universal decay. Toil-

hard looked for such an energy' on the"Inside of Things," by which he meantconsciousness, and he ascribed an in-herent consciousness to even the lowestforms of inorganic matter. Operating onIhe Inside, on consciousness, he con-cluded, was a "radial" or spiritual energy,separate from but related to tangentialenergy. Reversing the laws of thermo-dynamics, he formulated the "Law ofComplexity-Consciousness."

According to this law, complexity in-creases on the Outside until stopped bythe loss of tangential energy. But on theInside, radial energy, which is inexhausti-ble, drives the organism toward higherlevels of both complexity and conscious-

46

WHILE HE LIVED, HIS FATEWAS EXILE. NO\^^ HIS THEORIES

ARE EXALTED, CONDEMNED. ness. In the evolution of animals, com-plexity-consciousness reached the levelof instinct and awareness, in man, thelevel of thought, moral judgment, free-dom of choice, spirituality. "Animalsmerely know," said Teilhard, "but manknows he knows." Since radial energy isa tremendous reservoir, it will go onproducing more and more complex formsand so outdistance the rate of atomicdisintegration.

Through this interplay of the Outsideand the Inside, Teilhard reinterpretedevolution, the universe and God, Geolo-gists describing the successive layers ofthe earth speak of the barysphere, com-posed of metals; the lithosphere, ofrocks; the hydrosphere, of water. Teil-hard invented a new layer, the noosphere(from the Greek noos: mind). Thought,he explained, generated the noosphere."The idea is that of the earth not onlybecoming covered by myriads of grainsof thought but becoming enclosed in asingle thinking envelope so as to form,functionally, no more than a single vastgrain of thought., , , "

But the noosphere is not the apex ofevolution. Beyond it, Teilhard believed,beckons a further series of synthesesconverging toward the Omega Point. Theprerequisite to this final ascent is man'ssocial consciousness. Just as aggregatesof cells form an individual, so the aggre-gate of individuals will form a super-organism, a collective, combining thesum total of human consciousness. Buthow can personality and collectivity com-bine without damage to either? Teilhardfinds the answer in a special property ofradial energy—love. And the power thatmoves the universe through love towardthe zenith is Christianity. In the culminat-ing synthesis of evolution a universalconsciousness, forever freed from materialshackles, will fuse with Omega.

If left solely to the Holy Office, headedby the aged, archconservative AlfredoCardinal Ottaviani, the controversialliterature would not only have beenbanned from Catholic bookstores butalso no doubt placed on the CatholicIndex of Prohibited Books. Many authorshave been proscribed for less. But PopeJohn took a broader view. He showedscant enthusiasm for the Index. "I amhere to bless, not to condemn," he onceremarked when asked what fate hethought Teilhard's works deserved, andhe had no wish to arouse world opinionwith another Galileo case. Indeed, thoughhe approved the nioiiitum. a formal warn-ing, probably to appease the Holy Office,he later called it "regrettable." Itremainstobe seen what position Pope Paul will take.

It is what Teilhard omitted from hisaccount of evolution, or what he failedto stress, that dismays the orthodox.Nowhere, they protest, did he clearlyacknowledge spontaneous creation, thatact in which God created the human soul.Again, if evolution is carrying humanityinfallibly to absolute perfection, if theprocess was preordained from Alpha toOmega, what place remains for DivineGrace, without which no Christian canachieve salvation? And what happens toevolution if a Third World War annihi-lates mankind? Part of Teilhard's attrac-

JeanneMorf/er, a decoted disciple, reads ate of Teilhanl maniiscripts .she Ue/js in clipboard in her Paris room.

4 6

tion is his spirit of hope in a time ofdespair, Some religious thinkers, how-ever, do not share his optimism. "I canbase my life on the hope of individualsalvation, but not on the certainty ofuniversal survival," says the distinguishedFrench Jesuit theologian. Father JeanDaniiilou. "Some imbecile may drop thebomb." Teilhard never dealt logicallywith the possibility that mankind mightdestroy itself. In his radiant optimism hesimply refused to consider such a pos-sibility could occur.

Teilhard's critics also attack him onscientific grounds. To ascribe conscious-ness to matter, they object, is sheermysticism, unverifiabie by any instru-ment of observation.

Yet despite Teilhard's deviations fromChristian doctrine and scientific logic,both theologians and scientists agree thathe filled an urgent need in both theirspheres. Scientific materialism is on thewane. So is religious isolationism. Thedeeper science probes nature the lesslikely it seems that science can explaineverything, that superhuman power playsno part. At the same time progres-sive clergymen feel the church must re-adjust its outlook to the discoveries ofmodern science, if it is to remain a vitalinfluence.

ln his introduction to the Englishtranslation of The Phenomeiwii of Man.the agnostic biologist. Sir Julian Huxley,wrote, ". . . (Teilhard] has forced theolo-gians lo view their ideas in the newperspective of evolution and scientists tosee the spiritual implications of theirknowledge. He has both clarified and uni-fied our vision of reality." Maurice Cardi-nal Feltin, Archbishop of Paris, declared,"What is most alluring in his work is thewonderful prospect of a total and aggre-gate perspective of the universe in whichmatter and spirit, body and soul, natureand the supernatural, science and faithwill find their unity in Christ."

In the United States Father Teilhard'sinfluence is just beginning to be felt. Hisnumerous followers have as yet formedno organization, the main reason beingpressure brought by the Apostolic Dele-gate, Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi. One ofTeilhard's most ardent American sup-porters. Father Robert T. Francoeur, ayoung biology teacher of Steubenville,Ohio, was obliged to abandon his efifortsto establish a Teilhardist center, and hisanthology. The WorldoJ Teithardde Char-din., was banned from Catholic seminaries.Abroad, however, Teilhard has even beendragged onto the tumultuous stage ofinternational politics and there made toserve diametrically opposite aims.

Leopold S^dar Senghor, the French-educated Catholic President of Senegaland black Africa's foremost poet, ad-vances the Jesuit's ideas as an antidoteto Communism. Owing mainly to Seng-hor, Teilhardism has created a consider-able ripple on the dark continent,

"Considering the failure of liberalcapitalism and the selfishness of privilegednations, our greatest temptation was toturn to Marxism," Senghor proclaimednot very long ago. "We soon realized thatif Marxism could help us cure our under-development, it could not satisfy our

Members of Ihe Asaoriatiov of Ilie Frieiid.s of Teilhnrd mrelill II I'nri.'i cuirenl In shitly liis iileox ahoiil sriencr fiiiil Hoil.

I'ariyiiiii ijuiillis ili.ftriliiili- aiiti-Teilliortl Irnrln at urlmri'li fiitraurf. A l)i.'<lifiii Inter lianiieil t/ti^ practice.

CiimmuiHst J{i)t/er (lanimlii tirist&l the Ummcx lo fit Marxi.it. dogma. Hiis.iU/ nnw pubfinhf.t Teilhard.

Fiil/irr .liiliii .hiiissi'iis it ijciier'il "/ l/ic Siirii-ly of .It^su.'^. irliirh fnrba/fe the .Jesuit to /mtili.s/i ir/iile /ir tired.

47

Josepti, Father Teilhartts brother, tiies in ttii.t rtii'itriiii in Aiirinjne.

"LORD, LORD," HE ONCEASKED, ''WHEREVER DO YOUSEEK YOUR BRIDES?"

spiritual hunger. Father Teilhard enabledus to transcend the paradox of materi-alism and spirituality. He led us out ofa dead end."

Although Teilhard's writings containno direct reference to the problems ofAfrica's blacks, it is easy to understandhow deeply some of his general proposi-tions would appeal to them. For example:"No evolutionary future awaits manexcept in association with other men. . . .The most humanized groups appear al-ways, in the end, as the product not of asegregation, but of a synthesis."

It is less easy to understand whatcommon ground could possibly exist be-tween Teilhardism and Communism. Inthe latter Teilhard saw "tbe most ghastlyfetters . . . the anthill instead of brother-hood." Yet one of Tcithard's principalsupporters in France is Roger Garaudy,a former Communist senator who nowheads the Center lor Marxist Studies inParis, and regularly journeys to Moscowon Party business. By perverting Teil-hard's evolutionary theory, and promot-ing the idea of collective consciousnessonly so far as it might lead to a superiorsocial world community, Garaudy hasmade the Jesuit acceptable to the Soviets,who will shortly issue a Russian trans-lation of The Phenumenon of Man with

a preface by Garaudy (the latest of whoseown books is titled God Is Dead).

According to the Friends of Teilhard'ssomewhat naive justification for thusharboring a Communist, wherever theTeilhardian light shines it can produceonly good. But the strange relationshiphas fortified the anti-Teilhard camp. "Wealways knew it," they say. "Teilhardundermines Catholicism."

Teilhard's sense of spirit pervadingmatter germinated in his boyhood. Theplace was Sarcenat, a tiny mountain vil-lage in the province of Auvergne, wherethe family occupied a majestic 18th-century French manor house. "I was cer-tainly no more than sl\ or seven,"Teilhardrecalled near the end of his career, "when Ibegun to feel drawn by matter—or moreexactly by something that 'shone' at theheart ofmatter."Thc boy secretly hoardedcommonplace metallic objects—a plowkey, nails, spent cartridge shells—andworshiped them as idols, "I withdrewinto the contemplation of my "God ofIron.' Why iron? Because in my childishexperience nothing was harder, tougher,more durable. Stability: That undoubt-edly has been for mo the fundamentalattribute of Being."

Despair overwhelmed him when herealized iron rusted. To console himself.

he searched for more durable idols. Theregion around Sarcenat abounds in vol-cjnic craters, and he dug up bits oftjiiart/, amethysl and chalcedony. Hisentire spiritual life, as he looked back onit, seemed to him merely a developmentof that boyhood vi.sion. So did his dedi-aition to paleontology.

The name "Teilhard" is among theoldest in the Auvergne ("de Chardin"was added after a 19th-century marriage),Genealogists trace it to a I4th-centarynotary. Pierre Teilhard. ln 1538 noblerank was conferred upon one AstorgTeillard, as the name was also spelled.For his heraldic shield Astorg chose anexalted motto: "Fiery their vigor andcelestial their origin,"

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's mother,Berthe Adile de Dompierre d'Hornoy,was a woman so pious that when a priesttried to give her some comfortonthedeathof one of her children, she told him, "No,why trouble? He is in heaven before us,"She had a plaque raised over the mainentrance of the manor house, consecrat-ing it to "the Sacred Heart of Jesus." Inorder to be on hand when her childrenawoke, she normally attended the earliestMass at the village church, which wascelebrated before dawn, walking the twomiles, rain or shine, even during herpregnancies. At home she had her ownoratory where she frequently retired withher rosary. To his "dear and saintedmother," Pierre attested, "I owe the bestin my soul. . . . Il gives me great strengthto know that the whole effort of evolu-tion is reducible to the justification anddevelopment of a love of God. That iswhat my mother used to tell me longago." Ironically, the Teilhard de Chardingenealogy derives its loftiest distinctionfrom her great-great-gran duncle, theatheist, Voltaire, She often prayed forhis soul.

On inherited land—the accumulationof generations—Pierre's father, Emman-uel, led the life of a country squire. Anerudite man, with a passion for originalhistorical documents, he tirelessly rootedthrough the provincial archives. Hisefforts were crowned by the discovery ofa letter Joan of Arc had dictated, bearingher full signature—the only specimenknown—instead of her customary "X."Emmanuel also had a taste for natural sci-ence which he imparted to Pierre. But henever quite accepted the 20th century. Tohisdyingday he wrote with a quill pen. Hedid not install electricity or central heatingin his house until the'30's. He looked upontrade and commerce as demeaning pur-suits, and when his son Joseph went intothe shipping business (the last survivingchild, he now heads a Paris insurancecompany), the old gentleman felt thefamily escutcheon had been stained. Asanother son, Albiiric, had once observed,"We are a family who should be preservedunder glass."

Pierre was born on May I, 1881, thefourth of 11 children. They were ailhandsome, intelligent and godly, and allbut three died young of disease or battlewounds in World War I. Smallpox killedhis sister Franijoisc at the age of 26 inShanghai, where she was the mothersuperior of a renowned convent. Hissister Marguerite-Marie, for whom hehad a particular spiritual affinity, con-tracted tuberculosis of the spine at 20,and during the 17 year;; left to her she wasbedridden. Yet by correspondence and

bedside conferences she diri. .lod theCatholic Association of the Sid . Yearsafter her death Pierre apostroplii^cd herin these words:

"O Marguerite, my sister, while I,dedicated to the positive forces of theuniverse, was wandering over the con-tinents and the seas, passionately ab-sorbed in watching all the hues of theearth rise, you, motionless, prostrate,you were silently transforming, at thedepths of your being, the darkest shadowsof the world into light.

"In the eyes of the Creator, tell me,which of us two will have played thebetter role?"

Like all the boys of the family, Pierrewent to a Jesuit school. (All the girlsattended an Ursuline convent.) He wontop honors in every subject but o n e -religious doctrine. The fusty method ofteaching it repelled him. At 18, havingpassed his baccalaureate, he entered aJesuit novitiate. He had barely taken hisfirst vows, in 1901, when the Frenchgovernment enacted harsh anticlericallaws, and he migrated with his order,England offered the Jesuits refuge firston her channel island of Jersey, then inBrighton. When not occupied by hiscurriculum, which consisted chiefly ofphilosophy and the physical science,Teilhard roved the countryside with ageologist's hammer.

A Jesuit's religious preparation is longand rigorous, and he was not ordained

, until 1911. By then the anticlericalism. at home had subsided, and the Jesuits\ returned. Father Teilhard was attached' to the paleontological laboratory of the; Paris Museum of Natural History.

Deep In no-man's-land.

World War I brought a shatteringspiritual crisis to Teilhard. He joined aregiment of Moroccan Zouaves as astretcher-bearer. Under the heaviest bar-rage he would venture deep into no-man's-land after the wounded as if bullets wereair. His valor won him the MilitaryMedal and the knighthood of the Legionof Honor. The Moroccan soldiers be-lieved he was protected by his baraka,an Arabic word meaning spiritual stature.A young officer he befriended. MaxBigouen, marveled at such serenity in theface of death. "If I'm killed," said Teil-hard, "1 shall have changed my state,that's all."

His evolutionary concept had begunto take shape, and despite the exhaustionof battle, he would spend half the nightpacing up and down behind the trenches,thinking. "Except for a few bad hours,"he said in his old age, "1 never lost mytaste for thought."

Neither war nor natural cataclysmscould shake his belief in the infallibilityof evolution. To Teilhard mankind wasimperishable. Evil, suffering, waste hesaw as only transient departures from themain thrust forward, necessary depar-tures, "because His perfections cannotrun counter to the nature of things, andbecause a world, assumed to be progress-ing towards perfection, is of its natureprecisely still partially disorganized. Aworld without a trace or a threat of evilwould be a world already consum-mated. . . . Like an artist making use ofa fault or an impurity in the stone he Issculpting or the bronze he is casting soas to produce more exquisite lines or a

more beiiutiful tone, God, without spar-ing us the partial deaths, nor the finaldeath, which forms an essential part ofour lives, transfigures them by integratingthem in a better plan. . , ," Again, Teil-hard could not accept the idea that man-kind might commit suicide.

Shortly after the armistice. Max Bii-goufin, whom the war had reduced to aspiritual vacuum, met Teilhard at adinner party in Paris, and they left to-gether. Biigoui>n recounts: "It was rain-ing and cold. As I walked beside him,I told him 1 had lost my faith and why.Very simply, with the kindness andcharity that never failed him, he ex-pounded his ideas on creation, the mean-ing of evolution, and the supreme andactive part Christ played in the evolutionof the cosmos. From nine to midnight,walking back and forth in the rain.Father Teilhard , . . gave me the answerI had waited for so long. That night 1 wasreborn, tottering like Lazarus as hestepped out of the tomb at God's com-mand: Come forth!"

Teilhard was then completing his scien-tific studies at the Sorbonne. The follow-ing year the Catholic Institute of Parisappointed him to its chair of geology. In1923 his superiors permitted him to joinan expedition into the Ordos Desert ofInner Mongolia. He was gone three years.One Easter Sunday, camping near theedge of the desert, he composed a remark-able prayer:

"Since once again, O Lord, in thesteppes of Asia, I have no bread, no wine,no altar, I will raise myself above thosesymbols to the pure majesty of Reality,and I will offer to You, I, Your priest,upon the altar of the entire earth, thelabor and the suffering of the world, . . .

"Receive, O Lord, in its totality theHost which Creation, drawn by Yourmagnetism, presents to You at the dawnof a new day. This bread, our effort, is initself, I know, nothing but an immensedisintegration. This wine, our anguish, asyet, alas! is only an evaporating beverage.But in the depths of this inchoate massYou have placed—I am certain, for I feelit—an irresistible and holy desire thatmoves us all, the impious as well as thefaithful, to cry out: 'O Lord, make usone! '"

Returning to Paris, he resumed hischair at the Catholic Institute. His tenurewas brief. While his novel religio-scientificsynthesis, his lyricism and his quips packedthe classroom, they disturbed the Societyof Jesus. When he wrote an essay suggest-ing that original sin was not a historicalfact but merely a theory to explain theexistence of evil, his superiors orderedhim for his own sake, before Rome tookaction, to stop teaching and stick to scien-tific research, preferably far from France.Under the auspices of the Museum ofNatural History, Teilhard obedientlysailed back to China.

The society might have thought betterof banishing him had it foreseen how hisscientific work with Peking Man andother fossil discoveries in dhina, Indiaand Africa would eonfirm him in hisobjectionable theory.

"Where the goat is tethered," he saidlater, "there must he graze, but in thelittle freedom allowed me I intend tostrike as much fire as I can."

Although many of the Jesuits person-ally revered Teilhard and felt he wouldadd luster to their history, the Father

7'tiepriest once tived and worked in thisJenuil institution in Pari.t. f)e.ynle hin aupeHorft' ban, many JesitltH revere him.

Diiriiuj hi.1 novUiiite he prayed In this C^saiim-flke chapel, lie iron school honors, but iiol In retiginnn doctrine.

AFIERROME,HE WEPl; 'THEY DO NOT

ME TO THINK."

General in Rome, Jolm Jansscns, refusedto lift the ixm on his writings. "I pray Imay ne^or grow bitter," Teilhard said toa Jesuit friend. He never did. But hesometimes wondered whether he had themoral nghi to acctpt a life of silence. Heanswered his own question in a poignantletter to another Jesuit:

If I rebelled (humanly, u would be so easyand so sweet), I «^oulil betray niy belief thatOur Lord acuvates all e\x;nis. Moreover. Iwould compromise ihe religious TIIUC of myideas in the eyes of our own broihcrs, if notothers. They would see an eslrangement fromthe ehureh. pride, who knov s what. It isessential I show, by my example, ihai if myideas are novel, they make me no les.s failhful.But there are shadows. Which of my iwovocations is more saercd—the one I followedin niy boyhood, at eighteen, or the one re-vealed lo me in the fullnes.s of my manhoodas the true meaning? Oh. my friend, tell methat by obeying I am not being false to myideals.

In 1939, during a short visit to Paris,Teilhard ga\e several private lectures. Hislisteners included Jeanne Mortier, a tiny,graying, birdlike spinster whose home,then as now, was one room she rented ina convent, and who performed variousvolunteer educational chores for thechurch. "Father Teilhard's message im-mediately became vital to my spirituallife," she recalls. Offering to ser\e him asa secretary at no pay, she persuaded himto entrust her with his manuscripts. Outof her meager pocketbook she met thecost of having copies made by mimeo-graph, as many as 5(X) per manuscript,and she circulated them aniong peoplepartial to Teilhard's views.

Was this tantamount to defying thechurch, as Teilhard's enemies charge? Henever thought so. By publication he un-derstood books sold in bookstores, notcopies of manuscripts privately distrib-uted. At any rate, neither the FatherGeneral nor the Holy Office called him toaccount. A number of the Paris Jesuitsactually abetted Mile. Mortier in her ef-forts to propagate Teilhardism. After thepriest returned to China, she organizeddiscussion groups which eventually led tothe Association of the Friends of Teilhard,

World War 11 caught him in Peking,and he did not see France again for sixyears. Assisted by another maroonedJesuit and scientist. Father Pierre Leroy,he launched the Geobiological Institute,whose ambitious project it was to investi-gate the prehistory of the entire Asiancontinent. The war, however, cut off thesubsidies he had been getting from bothFrench and Chinese foundations, theJapanese invasion restricted his move-nnents, and he had to content himself withminor laboratory research. He was oftencold, hungry and ragged. But outwardlyhe retained all his sparkle, bonhomie andtolerance. Father Leroy once chaffed him,"If you met the Devi! himself, you'dthink of something nice to say."

"Yes, why not?" Teithard agreed.Of the church di&nitarics who judged

his writings heretical, he remarked with asly grin, "They're not ripe yet. Evolutionhasn't quite touched them." Only a few

intimate compaiiiLins know what innertorment Tcilhard sulTercd. Several timesLeroy found him \^eeping and close tonervous collapse. But even in his blackestmoods he would declare, "God is great.One must obey."

It was in Peking that he finished ThePhenonifiion of Mnu. He gave the manu-script to an American friend, Mrs. JohnWiley, as she left for the United Stateswith her husband, a foreign-service officer,asking her to keep it until she heard fromhim or, should he die in China, to forwardit to a certain American Jesuit. It even-tually reached Jeanne Mortier. In her re-cently published memoirs, Mrs. Wileywrote, " Never until I met Father Teilharddid I so deeply feel the truth of the wordsof Genesis: 'So God created man in Hisown in-iage, in the image of God createdHe him.'"

When Teilhard finally got back toFrance, after the war, he was worn out byphysical privation and emotional stress.Soon after, he had a heart attack. He re-covered only to face new repressive mea-sures. The Society barred his way to thehighest academic post open to him—aprofessorship at the august College ofFrance. (The Academy of Sciences, how-ever, elected him a member; the govern-ment appointed him director of the Na-tional Center for Scientific Research, andraised him to higher rank in the Legion ofHonor.) He decided to appeal personallyto Father General Janssens. "I am goingto stroke the tiger's whiskers," he told hisfriends. He returned from Rome m tears.•"They don't want me to write," he said."They don't want me to think. They wantme to disappear."

He entered his last exile in I9SI as amember of the Wenner-Gren Foundationfor Anthropological Research, undertak-ing first a field study of early South Afri-can man, then settling at the foundation'sNew York headquarters. From CapeTown he wrote to Father Janssens:

Above all I feel that you must resign your-self to taking me as I am, that is, wiih thecorgcnital quality (or weakness) which eversince my childhood has caused my spirituallife to be completely domiraied by a sort ofprofound 'fis ling' for the organic rcalness ofthe World. . . .

1 now feel more indissolubly bound to thehierarchal Church and to the Christ of theGospel than ever before in my life. Never hasChrist seemed lo me more real, more personalor more immense.

How, ihen, can I believe that there is anyevil in the road I am following?

I fully recognize, of course, that Rome mayhave iti own reasons for judging that, in itspreseni form, my concept ofChristianity maybe premature or incomplete and that at thepresent moment its wider diffusion may there-fore be inopporlune.

It is on this point of formal loyalty andobedience ihai ! am particularly anxious toas5urc you tlial, in spiic of apparcni evidencelo (he contrary. I am resolved to remair a"child of obedience."

Teilhard's manuscripts now filled ahuge cupboard in Jeanne Monier's con-vent room, and before leaving Paris henamed her his legatee, thus empowering

her to have them published after hisdeath. For that act he has been sharplycriticized, A Jesuit may not make a will.Upon taking his vows he relinquishes allmaterial possessions to the Society. But invindication of Teilhard his partisans re-peat what the late Father Raymond Jouve,administrator of the prestigious Jesuitreview. Etudes, told him: The vow ofpoverty does not cover manuscripts: theauthor may dispose of them outside theSociety without violating any canonicallaw. "Save your works from oblivion,"Jouve urged Teilhard. "If we inherit them,they will never see the light of day. Ap-point a literary executor."

During his years in New York Teilhardtouched many lives and, as he had every-where, he left a trail of bright and warmmemories. A few weeks ago the sculp-tress Malvina Hoffman, an ailing but stillbeautiful woman at 76, sat sipping Bour-bon and water in the studio where Teil-hard had posed for a bust that now standsin the Paris Museum of Modern Art."To be ready for death is the sense oflife—he taught me that," she recalled,"and when I lay near death after a cor-onary, it helped me through." She raisedher glass. "Here's to him, wherever he is.God bless him."

Prayer lor a special sign

Father Robert Gannon, the formerrector of New York's St. Ignatius Loyolaparish, speaks of Teilhard's humility:"It's customary for a young Jesuit to havea monthly spiritual consultation with hissuperior. Not the older priests, though.But Pierre, busy as he was, and living inrooms outside the parish, would come tome every month as humbly as the young-est novice."

Teilhard had often prayed God to ac-cord him at his death a special sign ofcommunion. In The Dtvi'ne Milieu hewrote:

. , , when I feel I am losing hold of myself,absolutely passive in the hands of the greatunknown forces that have shaped me. in thosedark moments, grant, O God, that I mayunderstand that it is You who are painfullyparting the fibers of my being in order topenetrate the very marrow of my substance,and bear me away with You, . . . O divineEnergy, ineluctable and vivifying Power, be-cause, of us two. You are infinitely thestronger, it is to You that the role falls ofconsuming me in the union which shouldweld us together. Grant me, therefore, some-thing still more precious than the grace forwhich all the failhful pray. It is not enoughihat 1 should die while communicating. Teachme to communicate while dying.

Now, 28 years later, on a March eve-ning in 1955, during dinner with somecompatriots, he voiced the hope thatwhen his hour struck it would be the Dayof Restjrrection.

Easter fell on April 10 that year. Thesky was a limpid blue, the air soft. In themorning, following his private Mass, heattended a pontifical Mass at St, Patrick'sCathedral. Before lunch he strolledthrough Central Park, revolving in his

mind, perhaps, the essay enlii-d l^Christlqtic, which he had recently mailedto Mile. Mortier. It described Chri .t as apresence irradiating evolution. In the aft-ernoon Teilhard went with old friends,Mrs. Rhoda de Terra and her daughter,Noel, to the New York City Center, Theattraction was that familiar combination,Cavalteria Rtisttcana and Pagtiacci. After-ward they walked back to Mrs. de Terra'sapartment off Fifth Avenue for tea,

Teilhard was exulting over the splendorof that Easter Sunday, the loveliest, hesaid, he had ever known, when, in mid-speech, he pitched to the floor uncon-scious. As Mrs. de Terra put a pillowunder his head, he opened his eyes,"What happened to me? Where am I?"

"You're in my home," she said. "Doyou recognize me?"

"Yes. But what happened? 1 don't re-member anything. , , . This time,, it'sterrible."

Mrs. de Terra sent for a doctor and apriest. Before either arrived, Teilhard'sheart had stopped.

Jesuits shun funeral pomp. The serviceat St. Ignatius Loyola Church was simpleto the point of poverty. Ten mournersattended, among them Father Leroy, whohappened to be in the country for a scien-tific congress. He alone accompanied thebody to the cemetery of the Jesuit novi-tiate, 75 miles upstate, at Saint A n d r e won-the-Hudson. A cross of white flowersadomed the grave. It came from MalvinaHoffman. The small headstone bore onlyTeilhard's name and the dates of hisbirth and death.

When Jeanne Mortier heard the news,her first thought was, "Now there's no-body whom I can ask the great questions."For three days she kept to her room,grieving. Then she unlocked hermanuscript-crammed cupboard and tookout The Phenomenon of Man.

She had already chosen one of France'sablest publishers, Paul Flamand, a Cath-olic, upon condition that no matter whatpressures the church might exert, hewould not alter a word. There were strongpressures. Emissaries from the Holy Of-fice threatened them both with the Index.But they both stood firm. "So much theworse," said the iron-willed little woman,"1 prefer the Index to depriving the worldof such masterpieces,"

The Phenomenon of Man came outwithin eight months of Teilhard's death.The royalties earned by that and othermanuscripts to emerge from Mile. Mor-tier's cupboard exceed $150,000 to date.As the author's closest living kinsman,Joseph Teilhard de Chardin consideredcontesting her right to the legacy. When,however, he learned she was not keepinga cent for herself, but devoting it all to thefurtherance of his brother's teachings, hewaived any claims he might have.

Hostile voices continue to bedevil Mile.Mortier, but fail to budge her, for -sheclings to what Teilhard wrote in one ofhis last letters: "Let truth appear l->utonce to a single soul, and nothing '..-never stop it from invading everything _;,jsetting everything ablaze." THE r u

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