The Story He Told
Science and Religion in the Life of Teilhard de Chardin
Independently Published, 2024
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"Interiorly, I am caught between two opposing forces. One, the increasingly 'brutal' thought that nothing in life really matters except Our Lord. The other, the ever-sharpening sense, perhaps, of how heavy-handed, narrow-minded, and obsolete is the modern Church. Sometimes, I find myself thinking, 'cupio dissolvi, I want to be dissolved,' in order to escape this inner tearing."
The Story He Told lifts a curtain on what lay behind these words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: the clash of two narratives, one from religion and one from science, over a fundamental question: were human beings, was the entire cosmos, evolving? When narratives like that collide, the very ground shakes. What happens in such moments? What comes of them?
This book is a case in point. It is illustrated with images from Teilhard: Visionary Scientist and a variety of Creative Commons sources. Links in the digital version take you to Teilhard’s books, open to the very page from which a quotation comes.
Introduction
1. Of Sanctuaries and Stories
2. The Jesuit Story
3. Another Way to See
4. Outside of Eden
5. In the Beginning
6. A Life's "Great Choice"
7. Beyond Christianity
8. For All the World
9. Rome at Last
10. To End Well
From Chapter 6
A Life's Great Choice
Father Vladimir Ledóchowski and his letter to Father Costa de Beauregard
(Teilhard: Visionary Scientist).
After fifteen months in China, months when he and Licent uncovered magnificent prehistorical sites, Teilhard returned to France to resume his duties at the Institut Catholique. On the morning of November 13, 1924, he received a letter from his local superior, Father Costa de Beauregard, requesting his presence at the provincial headquarters in Lyon.
Something about the letter was chilling. That very evening Teilhard turned to his Jesuit friend, Auguste Valensin.
13 November, 1924
One of my papers (the one where I lay out three possible ways of representing original sin) has been sent, I don't know how, to Rome.... I come off being labeled a heretic or a troublemaker....
They want me to promise in writing that I will never say or write anything against the traditional position of the Church on original sin. This is both too vague and too absolute....
I'll have to act with prudence to avoid being faced with an ultimatum with which I cannot comply.
No one knows how Teilhard's Note found its way to Rome (some believe a copy had been stolen from his desk at the Institut Catholique), but it ended up on the desk of Father Vladimir Ledóchowski, Superior General of the Jesuits. That is how two foundational narratives collided, one very old and one very new, each calling itself "Christian."
To Obey?
When he had received the Note in question—unsigned but attributed to Teilhard—Father Ledóchowski had given it to several theologians for review. Then he had written Father Costa with a set of demands.
2 September, 1924
To J.-B. C. de Beauregard,
1. Father Teilhard is to be given the chance to deny he wrote the paper. It would be a real relief to learn that the memoir on original sin was not written by one of us.
2. If he did write it, he must promise in writing to never write anything against church teaching again.
3. If Teilhard's explanations are not satisfactory, the General will be obliged to take the necessary measures to avoid such regrettable deviations in the future. This could include expulsion from the Society of Jesus.
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