No wonder Pierre Teilhard de Chardin made the Vatican nervous. They must’ve had their knickers in a knot over a Jesuit priest who wrote shortly after World War I, “I have experienced no form of self-development without some feminine eye turned on me, some feminine influence at work.”
And that wasn’t even what flummoxed the hierarchs who condemned his new ideas. They simply couldn’t handle Teilhard’s three alternative ways to think about original sin, or joy in the dynamic process of evolution, when their theology was medieval, static, entrenched.
But to start with the controversy jumps too far ahead. Let’s focus for now on a stunning new documentary, ten years in the making, filmed in a total of 25 locations where Teilhard lived, including more than 35 interviews and archival footage. Reading Teilhard is rewarding and can also be difficult, but the film clarifies his key insights with marvelous directness. After watching it, I went outside in twilight to look in wonder at the luminous full moon, the distant hills and sculpted cypresses. My prayer was simply, “Thank you God for Teilhard.”
I’d been reintroduced to his writing earlier this year by the splendid work of Sister Ilia Delio, Franciscan theologian. Interviewed in this documentary, she points out that Teilhard was way ahead of his time. Now, the PBS film by co-producers Frank and Mary Frost makes him accessible to an audience far beyond his era (1881-1955) and the realm of churchgoers. This broader audience is appropriate, since The Divine Milieu was originally written for “waverers.”
Teilhard’s mother gave him traditional Catholicism, and his father, walks in the woods to explore the geology of the Auvergne, France. When his mother was cutting his hair by the fire, Pierre at six noticed how quickly the locks that fell in burned, and began his life-long search for something more permanent. He turned first to iron, but found it would rust. Then he found rock which lasted—and a distinguished career as a geologist and paleontologist.
His scientific studies created tension with a religion whose dominant teaching then was contempt for the world and flight from it. He loved the earth and found God’s fingerprints in all his explorations. He saw Christ at work in unfinished creation, drawing all matter to himself; as humans make the evolutionary journey into God, God “humbly becomes increasingly incarnate.” The work of human hands, nothing scorned, contributes to this gradual unfolding. Teilhard would often use the word “zest” to refer to “the spur or intoxication of advancing God’s kingdom in every domain of humankind.”
Field research–riding mules for weeks into the Chinese desert and sleeping in tents–didn’t bother Teilhard , because he was captivated by his quest for fossils and rocks that would tell the human story. What devastated him were the criticisms, silencings and exiles enforced by Vatican officials and Jesuit superiors. Previously, friends had described Teilhard as exuberant, charming, vivacious, kind. But his close friend Pierre Leroy, S.J. (the only one to accompany his body to the burial site) described him as “bereft and broken” when he realized around age 70 that his major works like The Divine Milieu and The Phenomenon of Man couldn’t be published in his lifetime.
As a writer, I can’t imagine the pain and frustration of being forbidden to publish. For someone whose ideas were ground-breaking, prophetic, an infusion of life the stale church desperately needed—devastating. He wanted the church to embrace the gift he offered, but that came only after his death. Fortunately, he’d willed his work to his secretary who got it published immediately. Many have speculated that if it’d gone to the Jesuits, it might’ve vanished into the archives or been destroyed. Sales of his books skyrocketed; he was recognized by four popes; his influence and phrases are found in Vatican II documents and “Laudato Si,” Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment.
To be continued next week in Part 2.
Kathy Coffey 
I think you have Passport for PBS. This should be good.