Editing Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (section)

==Academic and scientific career==
===Geology===
His father's strong interest in natural science and geology instilled the same in Teilhard from an early age, and would continue throughout his lifetime. As a child, Teilhard was intensely interested in the stones and rocks on his family's land and the neighboring regions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Early Years 1881 - 1899 |url=http://tcreek1.jimdofree.com/1-the-early-years/ |access-date=2023-12-24 |website=Teilhard de Chardin |language=en-US}}</ref> His father helped him develop his skills of observation. At the University of Paris, he studied geology, botany and zoology. After the French government banned all religious orders from France and the Jesuits were exiled to the island of Jersey in the UK, Teilhard deepened his geology knowledge by studying the rocks and landscape of the island.

In 1920, he became a lecturer in geology at the Catholic University of Paris, and later a professor. He earned his doctorate in 1922. In 1923 he was hired to do geological research on expeditions in China by the Jesuit scientist and priest [[Émile Licent|Emile Licent]]. In 1914, Licent with the sponsorship of the Jesuits founded one of the first museums in China and the first museum of natural science: the [[Musée Hoangho Paiho]]. In its first eight years, the museum was housed in the [[Chongde Hall]] of the Jesuits. In 1922, with the support of the Catholic Church and the French Concession, Licent built a special building for the museum on the land adjacent to the [[Tsin Ku University]], which was founded by the Jesuits in China. 

With help from Teilhard and others, Licent collected over 200,000 paleontology, animal, plant, ancient human, and rock specimens for the museum, which still make up more than half of its 380,000 specimens. Many of the publications and writings of the museum and its related institute were included in the world's database of [[zoological]], [[botanical]], and palaeontological literature, which is still an important basis for examining the early scientific records of the various disciplines of biology in northern China.

Teilhard and Licent were the first to discover and examine the [[Shuidonggou]] (水洞沟) ([[Ordos Loop|Ordos]] Upland, [[Inner Mongolia]]) archaeological site in northern China. Recent analysis of flaked stone artifacts from the most recent (1980) excavation at this site has identified an assemblage which constitutes the southernmost occurrence of an Initial Upper Paleolithic blade technology proposed to have originated in the Altai region of Southern Siberia. The lowest levels of the site are now dated from 40,000 to 25,000 years ago.

Teilhard spent the periods between 1926-1935 and 1939-1945 studying and researching the geology and palaeontology of the region. Among other accomplishments, he improved understanding of China’s sedimentary deposits and established approximate ages for various layers. He also produced a geological map of China.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Macke |first=Robert |date=2020-01-26 |title=Religious Scientists: Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955); Jesuit paleontologist |url=https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/sacred-space-astronomy/religious-scientists-fr-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin-s-j-1881-1955-jesuit-paleontologist/ |access-date=2023-12-24 |website=Vatican Observatory |language=en-US}}</ref> It was during the period 1926-1935 that he joined the excavation that discovered Peking Man.

=== Paleontology ===
From 1912 to 1914, Teilhard began his [[paleontology|palaeontology]] education by working in the laboratory of the [[National Museum of Natural History, France|French National Museum of Natural History]], studying the [[mammal]]s of the middle [[Tertiary]] period. Later he studied elsewhere in Europe. This included spending 5 days over the course of a 3-month period in the middle of 1913 as a volunteer assistant helping to dig with [[Arthur Smith Woodward]] and [[Charles Dawson]] at the [[Piltdown]] site. Teilhard’s brief time assisting with digging there occurred many months after the discovery of the first fragments of the fraudulent "[[Piltdown Man]]".{{cn|date=September 2024}} [[Stephen Jay Gould]] judged that [[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]] conspired with Dawson in the Piltdown forgery.<ref>{{Google books|o6g2tvN0nJoC|Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History|keywords=|text=|plainurl=}}</ref> Most Teilhard experts (including all three Teilhard biographers) and many scientists (including the scientists who uncovered the hoax and investigated it) have rejected the suggestion that he participated, and say that he did not.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Teilhard and the Pildown "Hoax" |url=http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/teilhard_de_chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilthoax(lukas).html |access-date=2017-12-14 |website=www.clarku.edu |archive-date=14 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120614033556/http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilthoax(lukas).html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Wayman |first=Erin |title=How to Solve Human Evolution's Greatest Hoax |language=en |work=Smithsonian |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-to-solve-human-evolutions-greatest-hoax-167921335/ |access-date=2017-12-14}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Costello |first=Peter |date=September 1981 |title=The Piltdown Puzzle, article in New Scientist |url=https://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/piltpuzzle.html |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=www2.clarku.edu |archive-date=28 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220628204804/http://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/piltpuzzle.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=King |first=Thomas M. |date=1983 |title=Teilhard and Piltdown |url=https://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilt.html |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=www2.clarku.edu |archive-date=19 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231219132044/https://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilt.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>  

Anthropologist [[Birx, H. James|H. James Birx]] wrote that Teilhard "had questioned the validity of this fossil evidence from the very beginning, one positive result was that the young geologist and seminarian now became particularly interested in palaeoanthropology as the science of fossil hominids.“<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Birx |first=H. James |date=1999 |title=The Phenomenon of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |url=https://huumanists.org/publications/journal/phenomenon-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin |access-date=2023-12-24 |website=UU Humanist Association |language=en}}</ref>  [[Marcellin Boule]], an [[palaeontologist]] and [[anthropologist]], who as early as 1915 had recognized the non-[[hominid]] origins of the Piltdown finds, gradually guided Teilhard towards human paleontology. Boule was the editor of the journal ''L’Anthropologie'' and the founder of two other scientific journals. He was also a professor at the Parisian [[National Museum of Natural History, France|Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle]] for 34 years, and for many years director of the museum's Institute of Human Paleontology.  

It was there that Teilhard became a friend of [[Henri Breuil]], a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] [[priest]], [[archaeologist]], [[anthropologist]], [[ethnologist]] and [[geologist]]. In 1913, Teilhard and Breuil did excavations at the prehistoric painted [[Cave of El Castillo]] in Spain. The cave contains the oldest known cave painting in the world. The site is divided into about 19 archeological layers in a sequence beginning in the [[Proto-Aurignacian]] and ending in the [[Bronze Age]]. 

Later after his return to China in 1926, Teilhard was hired by the Cenozoic Laboratory at the Peking Union Medical College. Starting in 1928, he joined other geologists and palaeontologists to excavate the sedimentary layers in the Western Hills near Zhoukoudian. At this site, the scientists discovered the so-called Peking man (Sinanthropus pekinensis), a fossil hominid dating back at least 350,000 years, which is part of the Homo erectus phase of human evolution. Teilhard became world-known as a result of his accessible explanations of the Sinanthropus discovery. He also himself made major contributions to the geology of this site. Teilhard's long stay in China gave him more time to think and write about evolution, as well as continue his scientific research.<ref name=":4" /> 

After the [[Peking Man]] discoveries, Breuil joined Teilhard at the site in 1931 and confirmed the presence of stone tools.

=== Scientific writings ===
During his career, Teilhard published many dozens of scientific papers in scholarly scientific journals. When they were published in collections as books, they took up 11 volumes.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=McCulloch |first=Winifred |date=1981 |title=Some Remarks on Teilhard and the Piltdown Hoax |url=https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/djoyce/piltdown/map_prim_suspects/teilhard_de_chardin/Chardin_defend/remarksTeilhard.html |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=www2.clarku.edu}}</ref> [[John Allen Grim]], the co-founder and co-director of the [[Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology]], said: "I think you have to distinguish between the hundreds of papers that Teilhard wrote in a purely scientific vein, about which there is no controversy. In fact, the papers made him one of the top two or three geologists of the Asian continent. So this man knew what science was. What he's doing in ''The Phenomenon'' and most of the popular essays that have made him controversial is working pretty much alone to try to synthesize what he's learned about through scientific discovery - more than with scientific method - what scientific discoveries tell us about the nature of ultimate reality.” Grim said those writing were controversial to some scientists because Teilhard combined theology and metaphysics with science, and controversial to some religious leaders for the same reason.<ref>{{Citation |title=Teilhard de Chardin: His Importance in the 21st Century | date=23 June 2015 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnCQHIeucNw |access-date=2023-12-19 |language=en}}</ref> 

===Service in World War I===
Mobilized in December 1914, Teilhard served in [[World War I]] as a stretcher-bearer in the [[French colonial forces|8th Moroccan Rifles]]. Priests were mobilized in the France of the First World War era, and not as military chaplains but as either stretcher-bearers or actual fighting soldiers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Clerics in the trenches: French priests in WWI |url=https://archokc.org/news/clerics-in-the-trenches-french-priests-in-wwi |access-date=2024-12-01 |website=Archdiocese of Oklahoma City |language=en}}</ref>  For his valor, he received several citations, including the [[Médaille militaire]] and the [[Légion d'honneur|Legion of Honor]].

During the war, he developed his reflections in his diaries and in letters to his cousin, Marguerite Teillard-Chambon, who later published a collection of them. (See section below)<ref>''Genèse d'une pensée'' (English: "The Making of a Mind")</ref><ref name="letters1" /> He later wrote: "...the war was a meeting ... with the Absolute." In 1916, he wrote his first essay: ''La Vie Cosmique'' (''Cosmic life''), where his scientific and philosophical thought was revealed just as his mystical life. While on leave from the military he pronounced his solemn vows as a Jesuit in [[Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon]] on 26 May 1918. In August 1919, in [[Jersey]], he wrote ''Puissance spirituelle de la Matière'' (''The Spiritual Power of Matter'').

At the [[University of Paris]], Teilhard pursued three unit degrees of natural science: [[geology]], [[botany]], and [[zoology]]. His thesis treated the mammals of the French lower [[Eocene]] and their [[stratigraphy]]. After 1920, he lectured in geology at the [[Catholic Institute of Paris]] and after earning a science doctorate in 1922 became an assistant professor there.

===Research in China===
In 1923 he traveled to China with Father [[Émile Licent]], who was in charge of a significant laboratory collaboration between the National Museum of Natural History and [[Marcellin Boule]]'s laboratory in [[Tianjin]]. Licent carried out considerable basic work in connection with Catholic missionaries who accumulated observations of a scientific nature in their spare time.

Teilhard wrote several essays, including ''La Messe sur le Monde'' (the ''Mass on the World''), in the [[Ordos Desert]]. In the following year, he continued lecturing at the Catholic Institute and participated in a cycle of conferences for the students of the Engineers' Schools. Two theological essays on [[original sin]] were sent to a theologian at his request on a purely personal basis:
* ''Chute, Rédemption et Géocentrie'' (''Fall, Redemption and Geocentry'') (July 1920)
* ''Notes sur quelques représentations historiques possibles du Péché originel'' (''Note on Some Possible Historical Representations of Original Sin'') (Works, Tome X, Spring 1922)

The Church required him to give up his lecturing at the Catholic Institute in order to continue his geological research in China. Teilhard traveled again to China in April 1926. He would remain there for about twenty years, with many voyages throughout the world. He settled until 1932 in Tianjin with Émile Licent, then in [[Beijing]]. Teilhard made five geological research expeditions in China between 1926 and 1935. They enabled him to establish a general geological map of China.

In 1926–27, after a missed campaign in [[Gansu]], Teilhard traveled in the [[Sanggan River|Sanggan River Valley]] near Kalgan ([[Zhangjiakou]]) and made a tour in Eastern [[Mongolia]]. He wrote ''Le Milieu Divin'' (''[[The Divine Milieu]]''). Teilhard prepared the first pages of his main work ''Le Phénomène Humain'' (''[[The Phenomenon of Man]]''). The Holy See refused the Imprimatur for ''Le Milieu Divin'' in 1927. 
[[File:Illustration of Peking Man (Sinanthropus Pekinen Sis) Wellcome M0001113.jpg|thumb|upright|Sketch of "The Lately Discovered Peking Man" published in ''[[The Sphere (newspaper)|The Sphere]]'']]

He joined the ongoing excavations of the [[Peking Man]] Site at [[Zhoukoudian]] as an advisor in 1926 and continued in the role for the [[Cenozoic Research Laboratory]] of the [[China Geological Survey]] following its founding in 1928. Teilhard resided in [[Manchuria]] with Émile Licent, staying in western [[Shanxi]] and northern [[Shaanxi]] with the Chinese paleontologist [[Yang Zhongjian]] and with [[Davidson Black]], Chairman of the China Geological Survey.

After a tour in Manchuria in the area of [[Greater Khingan]] with Chinese geologists, Teilhard joined the team of American Expedition Center-Asia in the [[Gobi Desert]], organized in June and July by the [[American Museum of Natural History]] with [[Roy Chapman Andrews]]. Henri Breuil and Teilhard discovered that the [[Peking Man]], the nearest relative of ''[[Anthropopithecus]]'' from [[Java]], was a ''faber'' (worker of stones and controller of fire). Teilhard wrote ''L'Esprit de la Terre'' (''The Spirit of the Earth'').

Teilhard took part as a scientist in the [[Croisière Jaune]] (Yellow Cruise) financed by [[André Citroën]] in [[Central Asia]]. Northwest of Beijing in Kalgan, he joined the Chinese group who joined the second part of the team, the [[Pamir Mountains|Pamir]] group, in [[Aksu City]]. He remained with his colleagues for several months in [[Ürümqi]], capital of [[Xinjiang]]. In 1933, Rome ordered him to give up his post in Paris. Teilhard subsequently undertook several explorations in the south of China. He traveled in the valleys of the [[Yangtze]] and [[Sichuan]] in 1934, then, the following year, in [[Guangxi]] and [[Guangdong]].

During all these years, Teilhard contributed considerably to the constitution of an international network of research in human paleontology related to the whole of eastern and southeastern Asia. He would be particularly associated in this task with two friends, [[Davidson Black]] and the [[Scottish people|Scot]] [[George Brown Barbour]]. Often he would visit France or the United States, only to leave these countries for further expeditions.

===World travels===
[[File:TeilhardP 1947.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|left|Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1947)]]

From 1927 to 1928, Teilhard was based in Paris. He journeyed to [[Leuven]], Belgium, and to [[Cantal]] and [[Ariège (department)|Ariège]], France. Between several articles in reviews, he met new people such as [[Paul Valéry]] and {{Interlanguage link|Bruno de Solages|fr}}, who were to help him in issues with the Catholic Church.

Answering an invitation from [[Henry de Monfreid]], Teilhard undertook a journey of two months in [[Obock]], in [[Harar]] in the [[Ethiopian Empire]], and in [[Somalia]] with his colleague Pierre Lamarre, a geologist,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gaudant |first=Jean |date=2012 |title=Brève histoire de la Société géologique de France vue à travers ses présidents successifs |url=https://www.annales.org/archives/cofrhigeo/gaudant-SGF.html |journal=Travaux du Comité français d'histoire de la géologie (COFRHIGEO) |pages=81–104}}</ref> before embarking in [[Djibouti]] to return to Tianjin. While in China, Teilhard developed a deep and personal friendship with [[Lucile Swan]].<ref name="Aczel">{{Cite book |last=Aczel |first=Amir |url=https://archive.org/details/jesuitskull00acze/page/320 |title=The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man |date=4 November 2008 |publisher=Riverhead Trade |isbn=978-1-594489-56-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/jesuitskull00acze/page/320 320] |author-link=Amir Aczel}}</ref>

During 1930–1931, Teilhard stayed in France and in the United States. During a conference in Paris, Teilhard stated: "For the observers of the Future, the greatest event will be the sudden appearance of a collective humane [[conscience]] and a human work to make." From 1932 to 1933, he began to meet people to clarify issues with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding ''Le Milieu divin'' and ''L'Esprit de la Terre''. He met [[Helmut de Terra]], a [[Germans|German]] geologist in the [[International Union of Geological Sciences|International Geology Congress]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]

Teilhard participated in the 1935 [[Yale University|Yale]]–[[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] expedition in northern and central India with the geologist [[Helmut de Terra]] and Patterson, who verified their assumptions on Indian [[Paleolithic]] civilisations in [[Kashmir]] and the [[Salt Range]] Valley. He then made a short stay in [[Java]], on the invitation of [[Netherlands|Dutch]] paleontologist [[Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald]] to the site of [[Java Man]]. A second [[human skull|cranium]], more complete, was discovered. Professor von Koenigswald had also found a tooth in a Chinese [[apothecary]] shop in 1934 that he believed belonged to a three-meter-tall [[ape]], ''[[Gigantopithecus]],'' which lived between one hundred thousand and around a million years ago. Fossilized teeth and bone (''[[dragon bones]]'') are often ground into powder and used in some branches of [[traditional Chinese medicine]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=How Gigantopithecus was discovered |url=http://www.uiowa.edu/~nathist/Site/giganto.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080808033329/http://www.uiowa.edu/~nathist/Site/giganto.html |archive-date=8 August 2008 |access-date=16 September 2016 |publisher=The [[University of Iowa]] Museum of Natural History |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

In 1937, Teilhard wrote ''Le Phénomène spirituel'' (''The Phenomenon of the Spirit'') on board the boat Empress of Japan, where he met [[Sylvia Brett]], [[List of Sarawakian consorts|Ranee]] of [[Sarawak]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/LettersFromATraveller|title=Letters from a Traveller|accessdate=26 September 2022|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> The ship took him to the United States. He received the [[Mendel Medal (Villanova University)|Mendel Medal]] granted by [[Villanova University]] during the Congress of [[Philadelphia]], in recognition of his works on human paleontology. He made a speech about [[evolution]], the origins and the destiny of man. ''[[The New York Times]]'' dated 19 March 1937 presented Teilhard as the Jesuit who held that [[human|man]] descended from [[monkeys]]. Some days later, he was to be granted the ''[[Doctor Honoris Causa]]'' distinction from [[Boston College]].

Rome banned his work ''L'Énergie Humaine'' in 1939. By this point Teilhard was based again in France, where he was immobilized by [[malaria]]. During his return voyage to Beijing he wrote ''L'Energie spirituelle de la Souffrance'' (''Spiritual Energy of Suffering'') (Complete Works, tome VII).

In 1941, Teilhard submitted to Rome his most important work, ''Le Phénomène Humain''. By 1947, Rome forbade him to write or teach on philosophical subjects. The next year, Teilhard was called to Rome by the Superior General of the Jesuits who hoped to acquire permission from the Holy See for the publication of ''Le Phénomène Humain''. However, the prohibition to publish it that was previously issued in 1944 was again renewed. Teilhard was also forbidden to take a teaching post in the Collège de France. Another setback came in 1949, when permission to publish ''Le Groupe Zoologique'' was refused.

Teilhard was nominated to the [[French Academy of Sciences]] in 1950. He was forbidden by his superiors to attend the International Congress of Paleontology in 1955. The Supreme Authority of the Holy Office, in a decree dated 15 November 1957, forbade the works of de Chardin to be retained in libraries, including those of [[religious institute]]s. His books were not to be sold in Catholic bookshops and were not to be translated into other languages.

Further resistance to Teilhard's work arose elsewhere. In April 1958, all Jesuit publications in Spain ("Razón y Fe", "Sal Terrae","Estudios de Deusto", etc.) carried a notice from the Spanish Provincial of the Jesuits that Teilhard's works had been published in Spanish without previous ecclesiastical examination and in defiance of the decrees of the Holy See. A decree of the Holy Office dated 30 June 1962, under the authority of [[Pope John XXIII]], warned:

{{blockquote|[I]t is obvious that in philosophical and theological matters, the said works [Teilhard's] are replete with ambiguities or rather with serious errors which offend Catholic doctrine. That is why... the Rev. Fathers of the Holy Office urge all Ordinaries, Superiors, and Rectors... to effectively protect, especially the minds of the young, against the dangers of the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and his followers.<ref>AAS, 6 August 1962</ref>}}

The [[Diocese of Rome]] on 30 September 1963 required Catholic booksellers in Rome to withdraw his works as well as those that supported his views.<ref>The text of this decree was published in daily ''L’Aurore'' of Paris, dated 2 October 1963, and was reproduced in ''Nouvelles De Chrétienté'', 10 October 1963, p.&nbsp;35.</ref>

===Death===
[[File:CIA Jesuit cemetery 02.jpg|thumb|Grave at the cemetery of the former Jesuit novitiate in Hyde Park, New York]]

Teilhard died in New York City, where he was in residence at the Jesuit [[Church of St. Ignatius Loyola (New York City)|Church of St. Ignatius Loyola]], [[Park Avenue (Manhattan)|Park Avenue]]. On 15 March 1955, at the house of his diplomat cousin Jean de Lagarde, Teilhard told friends he hoped he would die on [[Easter Sunday]].<ref name="design">{{Cite book |last=Smulders |first=Pieter Frans |url=https://archive.org/details/designofteilhard0000smul |title=The design of Teilhard de Chardin: an essay in theological reflection |date=1967 |publisher=Newman Press |url-access=registration}}{{page needed|date=November 2017}}</ref> On the evening of Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955, during an animated discussion at the apartment of Rhoda de Terra, his personal assistant since 1949, Teilhard suffered a heart attack and died.<ref name=design/> He was buried in the cemetery for the New York Province of the Jesuits at the Jesuit novitiate, [[St. Andrew-on-Hudson]], in [[Hyde Park, New York]]. With the moving of the novitiate, the property was sold to the [[Hyde Park campus of the Culinary Institute of America|Culinary Institute of America]] in 1970.
[[File:Grave of Teilhard by afc.jpg|alt=Teilhard's Grave|thumb|Recent image of Teilhard's grave in Hyde Park, New York]]