Thursday, April 08, 2010

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.

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."
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.
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