George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, socialist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama. Over the course of his life he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his plays address prevailing social problems, but each also includes a vein of comedy that makes their stark themes more palatable. In these works Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.

An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Societ

An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council.

In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw's Corner.

He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). The former for his contributions to literature and the latter for his work on the film "Pygmalion" (adaptation of his play of the same name). Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright, as he had no desire for public honours, but he accepted it at his wife's behest. She considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.

Shaw died at Shaw's Corner, aged 94, from chronic health problems exacerbated by injuries incurred by falling.

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George Bernard Shaw (Author of Pygmalion)

As far as pubs go in Dublin, this is hands down my favourite. Far from the typical Irish pub experience, this place is truly one of a kind. It feels like the type of place that in any other city in the world would be overrun and packed to the brim with hipsters who'd have appropriated the place as their own. At the Bernard Shaw however, it manages to capture the exact vibe - a funky interior decor, eclectic & artsy and yet somehow not being pretentious at the same time.

The place is always busy regardless of when you go here, but somehow never too busy and you always get served pretty fast. Their selection of beers is solid and there are cocktails on offer as well and there is often a 2-4-1 deal going on with 2 cocktails for 10 Euro - bargain!

The magic of this place though happens as soon as you step out the back. It is the one place in Dublin where no matter the season, out the back in the yard is where you need to be. The communal seating out the back is great, it's always heated and despite the smokers if you're a non-smoker like me you don't feel the smoke at all and can still relax. With the same street art type layout as you get indoors, this is the type of place you could really just sit and chill with your friends for hours on end, play some pool or just chat with some randoms in your surrounds.

Now if you're hungry, then comes the icing on the cake: order your pizza off the counter on the big blue bus. Yes, you read that right. The big blue bus, a double decker turned hang out spot where you order and have your pizza prepared (and with pizzas starting from 7 Euro, the prices are a real win too), and you can head upstairs, sit on the bus, drink your pint and eat your pizza in relative cosy isolation as you look out at the buzz in the courtyard below. The bus too is decorated in a sort of vintage style with dimmed lamps, cushions and the likes, it's a great spot to eat, drink and chat with mates.

Off the main tourist trail and yet still close to the centre of town this place is always a favourite. Great for an afternoon chillout or an evening out with friends alike. And with brunches in the morning and of late Saturday afternoon yoga sessions out the back you can't really go wrong here. That's why I keep coming back!

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The Bernard Shaw - 135 Photos - Bars - Harcourt - Dublin ...

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit paleontologist who worked to understand evolution and faith. He was born May 1, 1881, and died on April 10, 1955.Between these days Teilhard fully participated in a life that included priesthood, living and working in the front lines of war, field work exploring the early origins of the human race, and adventurous travels of discovery in the backlands of China. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin also participated fully in an intellectual life through the development of his imaginative, mystical writings on the evolutionary nature of the world and the cosmos.

Teilhard suffered from the rejection of his writings by ecclesiastical authorities andperhaps felt more severely by himby the Jesuit leadership. In his thinking and writing Teilhard studied the intimate relationship between the evolutionary development of the material and the spiritual world, leading him to celebrate the sacredness of matter infused with the Divine presence.

Teilhards interest in the world of nature began when he was a child. As he grew up he studied geology and the natural sciences. After he entered the Jesuits, he was ready to give up these interests in order to devote himself to his spiritual vocation. But Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was dissuaded by his wise Jesuit spiritual director, who advised him that following his intellectual interests also gave glory to God. Through his theological studies and continued studies in the natural sciences, Teilhard sought to create intellectual space in which the physical and spiritual world could be appreciated for their unique contribution to human life.

Teilhards thinking was tested in the midst of the first great tragedy of the 20th century, World War I. Although he was ordained a priest in 1911, Pierre was drafted into the French army in 1914. He turned down a commission in order to serve as a stretcher bearer, serving in many of the major battles including Champaign, Verdun, and the second Battle of the Marne. Teilhard served heroically, winning the Croix the Guerre and the Chevalier de la Legion dHonneur. In the midst of this slaughter and crippling of millions of men, Teilhards faith was shaken. But his insight into the evolving flow of history helped him to see, even in the midst of human tragedy, a sense of communion with the world and communion with God united in the crucified Christ.

After the war, Teilhard went on to receive a doctorate in geology from the Sorbonne. His developing insights on the nature of evolution did not sit well with a hierarchy uncomfortable with the idea of evolution and its spiritual consequences. So in 1923 Teilhard was given permission to go to China to do paleontological work in the backcountry around Beijing (Peking). Teilhard spent many of the 23 years between 1923 and 1946 doing fieldwork in China under the most primitive conditions.

Expeditions took him to difficult areas where he endured blistering heat, icy blizzards, poor food, sandstorms, snakes, flash floods, marauding bandits, civil war, political intrigue, bribery, and maddening policy changes leveled by unstable governments.

(Foreword to The Divine Milieu, Thomas King , SJ, newly revised translation by Sion Cowell, xvii)

No matter how trying the times, Teilhard continued to develop his positive vision by writing some of his most important works: The Divine Milieu (1927), The Vision of the Past (1935), Building the Earth (1937), The Phenomena of Man (1940), and The Future of Man (1941). Teilhards efforts to receive ecclesiastical approval for the publication of The Phenomena of Man failed, and he was also denied the opportunity to teach in France. With his health failing, Teilhard traveled to South America and South Africa tracing further discoveries of the evolutionary journey. He finally settled at St. Ignatius Parish in New York City where he died peacefully Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955.

By Jim Campbell

It is through the collaboration which he solicits from us that Christ, starting from all creatures, is consummated and attains his plenitude. St. Paul himself tells us so. We may, perhaps, imagine that Creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues in still more magnificent form in the highest zones of the world.Our role is to help complete it, if only by the humble work of our hands. This is the real meaning and the price of our acts. Owing to the interrelation between matter, soul, and Christ, we lead part of the being which he desires back to God in whatever we do. With each of our works, we labor automatically but really to build the Pleroma, which is to say we help towards the fulfillment of Christ. (The Divinization of Our Activities in Modern Catholic Thinkers [Vol. 1], New York: Harper 1960.)

Lord Christ, you who are divine energy and living irresistible might: since of the two of us it is you who are infinitely the stronger, it is you who must set me ablaze and transmute me into fire that we may be welded together and made one. Grant me, then, something even more precious than that grace for which all your faithful followers pray: to receive communion as I die is not sufficient: teach me to make a communion of death itself. (Hymn of the Universe, NY: Harper and Row 1965.)

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20th-Century Ignatian Voices

21st-Century Ignatian Voices

More Being: The Emergence of Teilhard de Chardin / Teilhard at Vespers (PDF)

By John F. Haught / Editors at America Magazine

Haught shows how Teilhards ideas about the future of the cosmos influenced the evolutionary vision of the Vatican II document The Church in the Modern World (1965).

The PDF also includes a reflection by the editors of America on Teilhards vision of human work contributing to the consecration of the world to God.

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ - IgnatianSpirituality.com

Belief We have only to believe. And the more threatening and irreducible reality appears, the more firmly and desperately we must believe. Then, little by little, we shall see the universal horror unbend, and then smile upon us, and then take us in its more than human arms. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Duty Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Evolution Evolution is gaining the psychic zones of the world... life, being and ascent of consciousness, could not continue to advance indefinitely along its line without transforming itself in depth. The being who is the object of his own reflection, in consequence, of that very doubling back upon himself becomes in a flash able to raise himself to a new sphere. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Friends The world is round so that friendship may encircle it. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Generosity The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one's self to others. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Humanity We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Life In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Love Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world... Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Love alone can unite living beings so as to complete and fulfill them... for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Someday, after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energy of love; and for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Potential It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Spirituality You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Unity We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Quotes :: Quoteland ...

I admire your optimism. At a time when many, if not most, investors are fixated on market volatility and worried about losing their shirts should the market melt down in the not-too-distant future, you're thinking about saving and investing for the long-term.

But as much as I like your upbeat outlook, I think you also need to temper it with some realism. Ending up with a $1 million IRA, traditional or Roth, isn't a pipe dream. A General Accounting Office report released last year found that some 630,000 IRAs had balances greater than $1 million. But the GAO also found that 99% of IRAs had balances below the $1 million mark, with a median account balance of just $34,000.

And the IRAs that did have seven-figure balances weren't funded solely by yearly contributions. The balances included money inherited from other IRAs as well as money that had been rolled over from 401(k)s and defined-benefit plans. Indeed, the GAO notes that it would have required double-digit returns greater than the Standard & Poor's 500-index actually delivered to hit the $1 million mark from annual IRA contributions alone.

I think it's fair to say that this isn't a goal you should expect to reach quickly, especially considering that you are starting to fund an IRA at a time when some experts are predicting subpar returns. ETF guru Rick Ferri has forecast a 7% annual long-term return for stocks and roughly 4% for Treasury bonds, assuming 2% inflation.

If you make the current $5,500 IRA maximum contribution every year and earn a 6% return each year, it would take 42 years for your IRA balance to reach $1 million. You'd actually get there several years sooner, assuming you contribute the IRA maximum as it increases with inflation and also begin making catch-up contributions (an additional $1,000 a year currently) once you hit age 50. Either way, we're talking about a very long time.

But while your $1 million goal may be daunting, that doesn't mean it's not achievable, or that you shouldn't try. The key is to go about it the right way.

Your main focus should be on saving as much as you can. Assuming you have sufficient income and the discipline to save, there's no reason you should limit yourself to funding just an IRA. In fact, by expanding your savings effort to a workplace plan such as a 401(k), where annual contribution limits are a lot higher ($18,000 this year, plus a $6,000 catch-up for people 50 and up), you can build a bigger balance much more quickly, and roll that money into an IRA later on.

For example, if you fund both a 401(k) and an IRA to the current max not including catch-upsi.e, invest $18,000 in a 401(k) plus $5,500 in an IRA for a total of $23,500 a yearyou would have a $1 million combined balance in 22 years, assuming a 6% annual return. That's too ambitious a savings goal for most people. And even if you could manage it, you would also want to confirm you're eligible to fund both an IRA and a 401(k) without resorting to the "back-door" route to a Roth IRA, which you can check by going to Morningstar's IRA Calculator. But the idea is that you'll have a larger balance and increase your odds of getting to seven figures if you save more than the IRA contribution limit.

The way you invest your savings will also determine the eventual balance of your IRA. Clearly, higher returns will lead to a larger balance more quickly. For example, if you earn 8% a year instead of 6%, it will take you 35 years instead of 42 to achieve a $1 million balance investing $5,500 a year in an IRA, and 19 years instead of 22 if you invest a combined $23,500 a year in a 401(k) and IRA.

Related: An investing strategy for a $1 million retirement nest egg

But earning more on your savings isn't just a matter of dialing up a higher return. You've also got to take more risk, and that increases the volatility of your portfolio and raises the possibility that your balance could get hammered if the market nosedives. If you panic and sell during such a meltdown, you could very well end up with a lower return than you would have earned with a less aggressive strategy.

A better approach: go with a portfolio that will give you a shot at realistic gains but you'll also be comfortable sticking with during major market setbacks. You can create such a portfolio by completing a risk tolerance test. Vanguard offers an asset allocation-risk tolerance tool that will recommend a mix of stocks and bonds based on your answers to 11 questions designed to gauge the level of risk you're comfortable taking. The tool will also show you how the recommended portfolio, as well as others more conservative and more aggressive, performed in both good and bad markets, so you can decide which is the best fit for you.

Related: 2 ways to a more secure retirement

As for choosing investments for your portfolio, I recommend you focus mostly, if not exclusively, on broadly diversified low-cost index funds or ETFs, many of which charge just 0.20% of assets or less in annual expenses. The reason is simple. The less of your return you give up to fees, the more quickly your savings are likely to grow, and the more likely you'll reach your ambitious goal.

One final note: For whatever reason, you seem to have decided to do a Roth IRA. You should know, however, that a Roth isn't automatically a superior option just because qualified withdrawals are tax-free. Generally, a Roth is a better deal than a traditional IRA if you expect to be in the same or higher tax bracket when you withdraw your contributions and investment earnings in retirement. But if you think you'll face a lower marginal tax rate in retirement, you may be better off doing a traditional IRA. Given that it's difficult for most people to tell what tax rate they'll face many years in the future, it can make sense to hedge your bets by keeping some money in both Roth and traditional accounts.

The most important thing, though, is to save diligently and invest whatever you manage to save in a portfolio you'll be able to stick with whether the market is soaring or slumping. Do that, and you'll know you've taken your best shot at achieving a secure retirement, even if you fall short of your $1 million goal.

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How to save $1 million for retirement using an IRA - Sep. 30 ...

A recent study found that retirees experience an immediate boost in happiness, and the positive effects remain four years after their final day on the job.

The news seems to be filled with doom and gloom predictions about what baby boomers will face in retirement. Study after study says those who are heading into their final working years have skimpy savings which will, undoubtedly, lead to unsatisfying golden years.

However, a study from researchers at George Mason University and Utah State University offers hope for boomers who are worried they are facing a dismal retirement. Using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, researchers discovered retiring is associated with not only a marked increase in happiness but also improved health.

"In some ways, it is surprising," says Sita Slavov, a public policy professor at George Mason University and co-author of the 2014 report. "You hear anecdotes of people who end up hating retirement. But it's also important to keep in mind that we are looking at the effect of retirement for the average person."

Happiness Is Immediate, Health Takes a While

One of the chief takeaways of Slavov's research is that people report an immediate uptick in happiness after retirement. While other research has recorded the same phenomenon, those studies typically indicate that happiness regressed and flattened over time. However, the George Mason and Utah State University research found the positive impact of retirement still remained four years after a person left the workforce.

Good health, on the other hand, took four years to arrive for retirees. "We suspect it's because health changes slowly," Slovav says. "It takes time for lifestyle changes to show up in the form of improved health."

Slovav adds that her team looked into whether health and happiness outcomes differed based on a person's type of work. However, there were no significant differences between those who reported having physically demanding jobs and other workers.

"One other interesting thing." Slovav says, "[is] we didn't find any evidence of long-term changes in health care utilization i.e. doctor visits and prescription drug use after retirement. So the improvements in health do not appear to be associated with increased health care costs."

A Happy Retirement Without Much Cash

While Slavov's findings seem to make a strong case for early retirement, doing so may feel like an unattainable dream for workers with limited savings. Fortunately, finance experts say you don't need a huge nest egg to have a happy retirement.

"Happiness is a positive cash flow," says Ken Moraif, founder and senior advisor of Dallas-based financial firm Money Matters. He argues that people with modest means who keep their expenses low can be happier than those who have more money coming in each month but spend it all. "You can have fancy cars and fancy houses, but you're going to be miserable all the time," he says of the latter group.

Feeling in control of the future may also be a factor that helps fuel retiree happiness, regardless of the size of a bank account. Andrew Meadows, vice president of brand + culture at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings and producer of the documentary "Broken Eggs," says he sees seniors getting creative with figuring out how to stay happy while also make ends meet after quitting their jobs.

"When I worked on 'Broken Eggs,' I found so many people living in their RVs in semi-permanent spots," he says. While living out of an RV saved money, Meadows says it wasn't a desperate move for the retirees he met. "It never seemed like [they] were forced out of their homes. It seems like people planned on that life in retirement."

Take Steps Now to Ensure Happiness Later

Although the research is promising, you shouldn't expect retirement to magically improve your life. Taking some small steps while working may help boost happiness and health once you exit the workforce.

Joe Heider, president of Cirrus Wealth Management in Cleveland, advocates for having a plan for retirement, and he doesn't mean a financial plan. "Many people think of retirement as a permanent vacation, but it can lead to boredom," he says.

To prevent long days spent doing nothing, Heider suggests pre-retirees create a plan for what they expect to do on a daily basis. A light daily schedule may be a welcome change at first, but as retirement progresses, staying engaged in a variety of activities can be key to happiness and healthiness.

Staying active is almost important. "You can have a positive cash flow, but if your health is poor, you're going to be unhappy," Moraif says. To that end, Moraif says his firm counsels clients to plan to live to 100 and take care of their bodies and bank accounts accordingly.

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Retirement: Your Ticket to a Happier, Healthier Life - US News

Bernard Shaw (born May 22, 1940) is a retired American journalist and former news anchor for CNN from 1980 until his retirement in March 2001.

Shaw was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1963 to 1968. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, including stints in Hawaii and at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, NC, where in 1962 he was a "Message Center" specialist, achieving the rank of Corporal, E-4. He exhibited a passionate interest in the print media, clipping articles from newspapers, often traveling at weekends to Washington, DC ("Big W"). He cultivated an acquaintance with Walter Cronkite, and had an interest in baseball.[1][2]

Shaw began his broadcasting career as an anchor and reporter for WNUS in Chicago. He then worked as a reporter for the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company in Chicago, moving later to Washington as the White House correspondent. He worked as a correspondent in the Washington Bureau of CBS News from 1971 to 1977. In 1977, he moved to ABC News as Latin American correspondent and bureau chief before becoming the Capitol Hill Senior Correspondent. He left ABC in 1980 to move to CNN as co-anchor of its PrimeNews broadcast, anchoring from Washington, D.C..

Shaw is widely known for the question he posed to Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Michael Dukakis at his second Presidential debate with George H. W. Bush during the 1988 election, which Shaw was moderating. Knowing that Dukakis opposed the death penalty, Shaw asked him if he would support an irrevocable death penalty for a man who hypothetically raped and murdered Dukakis's wife. Dukakis responded that he would not; some critics[who?] felt he framed his response too legalistically and logically, and did not address it sufficiently on a personal level. Kitty Dukakis, among other public figures, found the question inflammatory and unwarranted at a presidential debate. Several journalists also on the panel with Shaw, including Ann Compton, Andrea Mitchell, and Margaret Garrard Warner, expressed an interest in leaving Dukakis's name out of the question. [1]

He is also remembered for his reporting on the 1991 Gulf War. Reporting with CNN correspondents John Holliman and Peter Arnett from the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, he found shelter under a desk as he reported cruise missiles flying past his window. He also made frequent trips back and forth from the hotel's bomb shelter. While describing the situation in Baghdad, he famously stated "Clearly I've never been there, but this feels like we're in the center of hell."

He moderated the October 2000 vice-presidential debate between Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman.

Shaw co-anchored CNN's Inside Politics from 1992 until he retired from CNN in 2001. He has occasionally appeared on CNN, including in May 2005 when a plane flew into restricted air space in Washington, D.C. He also co-anchored Judy Woodruff's last broadcast on CNN in June 2005.

Shaw is married to Linda Allston, with whom he has a son and daughter.

Bernard Shaw appeared in Robert Wieners book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name where he was portrayed by Robert Wisdom.

The book, as well as the film, features Shaws subsequent trips to Iraq around the events of 1991 Gulf War including his interview of then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his live coverage of the Baghdad air strike on January 17, 1991 with his CNN colleagues John Holliman and Peter Arnett, from where the name of Wieners work was taken.

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Bernard Shaw (journalist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Born (1881-05-01)1 May 1881 Orcines, Auvergne, France Died 10 April 1955(1955-04-10) (aged73) New York City, New York, U.S. Nationality French Fields Paleontology, philosophy, theology, cosmology, evolutionary theory Knownfor The Phenomenon of Man, The Divine Milieu, the synthesis of theology and science Influences St. Paul, St. John the Evangelist, Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Henri Bergson, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher Influenced Henri de Lubac, Thomas Berry, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Lopold Sdar Senghor, Pope Benedict XVI

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (French:[pj teja d ad]; 1 May 1881 10 April 1955 was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of Peking Man. He conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving) and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of noosphere.

During his lifetime, many of Teilhard's writings were censored by the Catholic Church because of his views on original sin. However, Teilhard was praised by Pope Benedict XVI, and he was also noted for his contributions to theology in Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical Laudato si'.[1][2][3]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born in the Chteau of Sarcenat at Orcines, close to Clermont-Ferrand, France, on May 1, 1881. On the Teilhard side he is descended from an ancient family of magistrates from Auvergne originating in Murat, Cantal, and on the de Chardin side he is descended from a family that was ennobled under Louis XVIII. He was the fourth of eleven children. His father, Emmanuel Teilhard (18441932), an amateur naturalist, collected stones, insects and plants and promoted the observation of nature in the household. Pierre Teilhard's spirituality was awakened by his mother, Berthe de Dompiere. When he was 12, he went to the Jesuit college of Mongr, in Villefranche-sur-Sane, where he completed baccalaureates of philosophy and mathematics. Then, in 1899, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Aix-en-Provence, where he began a philosophical, theological and spiritual career.

As of the summer 1901, the Waldeck-Rousseau laws, which submitted congregational associations' properties to state control, prompted some of the Jesuits to exile themselves in the United Kingdom. Young Jesuit students continued their studies in Jersey. In the meantime, Teilhard earned a licentiate in literature in Caen in 1902.

From 1905 to 1908, he taught physics and chemistry in Cairo, Egypt, at the Jesuit College of the Holy Family. He wrote "... it is the dazzling of the East foreseen and drunk greedily ... in its lights, its vegetation, its fauna and its deserts." (Letters from Egypt (19051908) ditions Aubier)

Teilhard studied theology in Hastings, in Sussex (United Kingdom), from 1908 to 1912. There he synthesized his scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge in the light of evolution. His reading of L'volution Cratrice (The Creative Evolution) by Henri Bergson was, he said, the "catalyst of a fire which devoured already its heart and its spirit." His views on evolution and religion particularly inspired the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky. Teilhard was ordained a priest on August 24, 1911, at age 30.

From 1912 to 1914, Teilhard worked in the paleontology laboratory of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, in Paris, studying the mammals of the middle Tertiary period. Later he studied elsewhere in Europe. In June 1912 he formed part of the original digging team, with Arthur Smith Woodward and Charles Dawson at the Piltdown site, after the discovery of the first fragments of the (fraudulent) "Piltdown Man", with some even suggesting he participated in the hoax.[4][5] Professor Marcellin Boule (specialist in Neanderthal studies), who so early as 1915 astutely recognised the non-hominid origins of the Piltdown finds, gradually guided Teilhard towards human paleontology. At the museum's Institute of Human Paleontology, he became a friend of Henri Breuil and took part with him, in 1913, in excavations in the prehistoric painted caves in the northwest of Spain, at the Cave of Castillo.

Mobilised in December 1914, Teilhard served in World War I as a stretcher-bearer in the 8th Moroccan Rifles. For his valour, he received several citations including the Mdaille militaire and the Legion of Honour.

Throughout these years of war he developed his reflections in his diaries and in letters to his cousin, Marguerite Teillard-Chambon, who later edited them into a book: Gense d'une pense (Genesis of a thought). He confessed later: "...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. He pronounced his solemn vows as a Jesuit in Sainte-Foy-ls-Lyon, on May 26, 1918, during a leave. In August 1919, in Jersey, he would write Puissance spirituelle de la Matire (the spiritual Power of Matter). The complete essays written between 1916 and 1919 are published under the following titles:

Teilhard followed at the Sorbonne three unit degrees of natural science: geology, botany and zoology. His thesis treated of the mammals of the French lower Eocene and their stratigraphy. After 1920, he lectured in geology at the Catholic Institute of Paris, then became an assistant professor after being granted a science doctorate in 1922.

In 1923, he travelled to China with Father Emile Licent, who was in charge in Tianjin of a significant laboratory collaboration between the Natural History Museum in Paris and Marcellin Boule's laboratory. Licent carried out considerable basic work in connection with missionaries who accumulated observations of a scientific nature in their spare time. He was known as (pinyin: Drjn) in China.

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 sent to a theologian at his request on a purely personal basis were wrongly understood.[citation needed]

The Church required him to give up his lecturing at the Catholic Institute and to continue his geological research in China.

Teilhard traveled again to China in April 1926. He would remain there more or less twenty years, with many voyages throughout the world. He settled until 1932 in Tientsin with Emile Licent then in Beijing. From 1926 to 1935, Teilhard made five geological research expeditions in China. They enabled him to establish a general geological map of China.

In 1926, Teilhards superiors in the Jesuit Order forbade him to teach any longer. In 19261927 after a missed campaign in Gansu, he traveled in the Sang-Kan-Ho valley near Kalgan (Zhangjiakou) and made a tour in Eastern Mongolia. He wrote Le Milieu Divin (the divine Medium). Teilhard prepared the first pages of his main work Le Phnomne Humain (The Human Phenomenon). The Holy See refused the Imprimatur for Le Milieu Divin in 1927.

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 Geological Survey of China following its founding in 1928.

He resided in Manchuria with Emile Licent, then stayed in Western Shansi (Shanxi) and northern Shensi (Shaanxi) with the Chinese paleontologist C. C. Young and with Davidson Black, Chairman of the Geological Survey of China.

After a tour in Manchuria in the area of Great Khingan with Chinese geologists, Teilhard joined the team of American Expedition Center-Asia in the Gobi Desert organised 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 Pithecanthropus 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 Croisiere Jaune (Yellow Cruise) financed by Andr Citron in Central Asia. Northwest of Beijing in Kalgan, he joined the Chinese group who joined the second part of the team, the Pamir group, in Aksu. He remained with his colleagues for several months in Urumqi, capital of Sinkiang. The following year the Sino-Japanese War (19371945) began.

In 1933, Rome ordered him to give up his post in Paris.

Teilhard undertook several explorations in the south of China. He traveled in the valleys of Yangtze River and Sichuan in 1934, then, the following year, in Kwang-If and Guangdong. The relationship with Marcellin Boule was disrupted; the museum cut its financing on the grounds that Teilhard worked more for the Chinese Geological Service than for the museum.[citation needed]

During all these years, Teilhard strongly contributed to the constitution of an international network of research in human paleontology related to the whole Eastern and south Eastern zone of the Asian continent. He would be particularly associated in this task with two friends, the English/Canadian Davidson Black and the Scot George B. Barbour. Many times he would visit France or the United States only to leave these countries to go on further expeditions.

From 1927 to 1928, Teilhard stayed in France, based in Paris. He journeyed to Leuven, Belgium, to Cantal, and to Arige, France. Between several articles in reviews, he met new people such as Paul Valry and Bruno de Solages, 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 Harrar and in Somalia with his colleague Pierre Lamarre, a geologist, before embarking in Djibouti to return to Tianjin. While in China, Teilhard developed a deep and personal friendship with Lucile Swan.[6]

From 19301931, 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 19321933, 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 German geologist in the International Geology Congress in Washington, DC.

Teilhard participated in the 1935 YaleCambridge 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 Professor Ralph van Koenigswald to the site of Java man. A second cranium, more complete, was discovered. This Dutch paleontologist had found (in 1933) a tooth in a Chinese apothecary shop in 1934 that he believed belonged to a giant tall ape that lived around half a million years ago.

In 1937, Teilhard wrote Le Phnomne spirituel (The Phenomenon of the Spirit) on board the boat the Empress of Japan, where he met the Raja of Sarawak. The ship conveyed him to the United States. He received the 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, origins and the destiny of Man. The New York Times dated March 19, 1937 presented Teilhard as the Jesuit who held that man descended from monkeys. Some days later, he was to be granted the Doctor Honoris Causa distinction from Boston College. Upon arrival in that city, he was told that the award had been cancelled.[citation needed]

1939: Rome banned his work Lnergie Humaine.

He then stayed 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).

1941: Teilhard submitted to Rome his most important work, Le Phnomne Humain.

1947: Rome forbade him to write or teach on philosophical subjects.

1948: 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 his most important work Le Phnomne Humain. But the prohibition to publish it issued in 1944, was again renewed. Teilhard was also forbidden to take a teaching post in the College de France.

1949: Permission to publish Le Groupe Zoologique was refused.

1950: Teilhard was named to the French Academy of Sciences.

1955: Teilhard was forbidden by his Superiors to attend the International Congress of Paleontology.

1957: 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 institutes. His books were not to be sold in Catholic bookshops and were not to be translated into other languages.

1958: In April of this year, all Jesuit publications in Spain (Razn y Fe, Sal Terrae,Estudios de Deusto) etc., carried a notice from the Spanish Provincial of the Jesuits, that de Chardins works had been published in Spanish without previous ecclesiastical examination and in defiance of the decrees of the Holy See.

1962: A decree of the Holy Office dated 30 June, under the authority of Pope John XXIII warned that ... it is obvious that in philosophical and theological matters, the said works [Teilhards] 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. (AAS, 6 August 1962).

1963: The Vicariate of Rome (a diocese ruled in the name of Pope Paul VI (who had just become Pope in 1963) by his Cardinal Vicar) in a decree dated 30 September, required that Catholic booksellers in Rome should withdraw from circulation the works of Teilhard, together with those books which favour his erroneous doctrines. The text of this document was published in daily LAurore of Paris, dated 2 October 1963, and was reproduced in Nouvelles De Chrtient, 10 October 1963, p.35.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died in New York City, where he was in residence at the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Park Avenue. On March 15, 1955, at the house of his diplomat cousin Jean de Lagarde, Teilhard told friends he hoped he would die on Easter Sunday.[7] In the Easter Sunday evening of April 10 1955, during an animated discussion at the apartment of Rhoda de Terra, his personal assistant since 1949, the 73-year-old priest suffered a heart attack; regaining consciousness for a moment, he died a few minutes later.[8] He was buried in the cemetery for the New York Province of the Jesuits at the Jesuit novitiate, St. Andrew's-on-the-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York.[9]

Teilhard de Chardin has two comprehensive works. The first, The Phenomenon of Man, sets forth a sweeping account of the unfolding of the cosmos and the evolution of matter to humanity to ultimately a reunion with Christ. Chardin abandoned literal interpretations of creation in the Book of Genesis in favor of allegorical and theological interpretations.

In his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from primordial particles to the development of life, human beings and the noosphere, and finally to his vision of the Omega Point in the future, which is "pulling" all creation towards it. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal-driven way, argued in terms that today go under the banner of convergent evolution. Teilhard argued in Darwinian terms with respect to biology, and supported the synthetic model of evolution, but argued in Lamarckian terms for the development of culture, primarily through the vehicle of education.[10] Teilhard made a total commitment to the evolutionary process in the 1920s as the core of his spirituality, at a time when other religious thinkers felt evolutionary thinking challenged the structure of conventional Christian faith. He committed himself to what the evidence showed.[11]

Teilhard makes sense of the universe by its evolutionary process. He interprets complexity as the axis of evolution of matter into a geosphere, a biosphere, into consciousness (in man), and then to supreme consciousness (the Omega Point.)

Teilhards unique relationship to both paleontology and Catholicism allowed him to develop a highly progressive, cosmic theology which takes into account his evolutionary studies. Teilhard recognized the importance of bringing the Church into the modern world, and approached evolution as a way of providing ontological meaning for Christianity, particularly creation theology.[12] For Teilhard, evolution was the natural landscape where the history of salvation is situated.[13]

Teilhards cosmic theology is largely predicated on his interpretation of Pauline scripture, particularly Colossians 1:15-17 (especially verse 1:17b) and 1Corinthians 15:28. Teilhard draws on the Christocentrism of these two Pauline passages to construct a cosmic theology which recognizes the absolute primacy of Christ. He understands creation to be a teleological process towards union with the Godhead, effected through the incarnation and redemption of Christ, in whom all things hold together (Col. 1:17).[14] He further posits that creation will not be complete until participated being is totally united with God through Christ in the Pleroma, when God will be all in all (1Cor. 15:28).[15]

Teilhard's life work was predicated on the conviction that human spiritual development is moved by the same universal laws as material development. He wrote, "...everything is the sum of the past" and "...nothing is comprehensible except through its history. 'Nature' is the equivalent of 'becoming', self-creation: this is the view to which experience irresistibly leads us. ... There is nothing, not even the human soul, the highest spiritual manifestation we know of, that does not come within this universal law."[16] There is no doubt that The Phenomenon of Man represents Teilhard's attempt at reconciling his religious faith with his academic interests as a paleontologist.[17] One particularly poignant observation in Teilhard's book entails the notion that evolution is becoming an increasingly optional process.[17] Teilhard points to the societal problems of isolation and marginalization as huge inhibitors of evolution, especially since evolution requires a unification of consciousness. He states that "no evolutionary future awaits anyone except in association with everyone else."[17] Teilhard argued that the human condition necessarily leads to the psychic unity of humankind, though he stressed that this unity can only be voluntary; this voluntary psychic unity he termed "unanimization." Teilhard also states that "evolution is an ascent toward consciousness", giving encephalization as an example of early stages, and therefore, signifies a continuous upsurge toward the Omega Point,[17] which for all intents and purposes, is God.

Teilhard also used his perceived correlation between spiritual and material to describe Christ, arguing that Christ not only has a mystical dimension, but also takes on a physical dimension as he becomes the organizing principle of the universethat is, the one who holds together the universe (Col. 1:17b). For Teilhard, Christ forms not only the eschatological end toward which his mystical/ecclesial body is oriented, but he also operates physically in order to regulate all things[18] becoming the one from whom all creation receives its stability."[19] In other words, as the one who holds all things together, Christ exercises a supremacy over the universe which is physical, not simply juridical. He is the unifying centre of the universe and its goal. The function of holding all things together indicates that Christ is not only man and God; he also possesses a third aspectindeed, a third naturewhich is cosmic.[20] In this way, the Pauline description of the Body of Christ is not simply a mystical or ecclesial concept for Teilhard; it is cosmic. This cosmic Body of Christ extend[s] throughout the universe and compris[es] all things that attain their fulfillment in Christ [so that] . . . the Body of Christ is the one single thing that is being made in creation.[21] Teilhard describes this cosmic amassing of Christ as Christogenesis. According to Teilhard, the universe is engaged in Christogenesis as it evolves toward its full realization at Omega, a point which coincides with the fully realized Christ.[22] It is at this point that God will be all in all (1Cor. 15:28c).

In 1925, Teilhard was ordered by the Jesuit Superior General Wlodimir Ledchowski to leave his teaching position in France and to sign a statement withdrawing his controversial statements regarding the doctrine of original sin. Rather than leave the Jesuit order, Teilhard signed the statement and left for China.

This was the first of a series of condemnations by certain ecclesiastical officials that would continue until after Teilhard's death. The climax of these condemnations was a 1962 monitum (reprimand) of the Holy Office cautioning on Teilhard's works. It said in part:[23]

The above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine... For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.

The Holy Office did not place any of Teilhard's writings on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books), which existed during Teilhard's lifetime and at the time of the 1962 decree.

Shortly thereafter, prominent clerics mounted a strong theological defense of Teilhard's works. Henri de Lubac (later a Cardinal) wrote three comprehensive books on the theology of Teilhard de Chardin in the 1960s. While de Lubac mentioned that Teilhard was less than precise in some of his concepts, he affirmed the orthodoxy of Teilhard de Chardin and responded to Teilhard's critics: "We need not concern ourselves with a number of detractors of Teilhard, in whom emotion has blunted intelligence".[24] Later that decade Joseph Ratzinger, a German theologia who became Pope Benedict XVI, spoke glowingly of Teilhard's Christology in Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity:[25]

It must be regarded as an important service of Teilhard de Chardins that he rethought these ideas from the angle of the modern view of the world and, in spite of a not entirely unobjectionable tendency toward the biological approach, nevertheless on the whole grasped them correctly and in any case made them accessible once again. Let us listen to his own words: The human monad can only be absolutely itself by ceasing to be alone. In the background is the idea that in the cosmos, alongside the two orders or classes of the infinitely small and the infinitely big, there is a third order, which determines the real drift of evolution, namely, the order of the infinitely complex. It is the real goal of the ascending process of growth or becoming; it reaches a first peak in the genesis of living things and then continues to advance to those highly complex creations that give the cosmos a new center: Imperceptible and accidental as the position they hold may be in the history of the heavenly bodies, in the last analysis the planets are nothing less than the vital points of the universe. It is through them that the axis now runs, on them is henceforth concentrated the main effort of an evolution aiming principally at the production of large molecules. The examination of the world by the dynamic criterion of complexity thus signifies a complete inversion of values. A reversal of the perspective...

This leads to a further passage in Teilhard de Chardin that is worth quoting in order to give at least some indication here, by means of a few fragmentary excerpts, of his general outlook. The Universal Energy must be a Thinking Energy if it is not to be less highly evolved than the ends animated by its action. And consequently ... the attributes of cosmic value with which it is surrounded in our modern eyes do not affect in the slightest the necessity obliging us to recognize in it a transcendent form of Personality.

Over the next several decades prominent theologians and Church leaders, including leading Cardinals, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI all wrote approvingly of Teilhard's ideas. In 1981, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, on behalf of Pope John Paul II, wrote on the front page of the Vatican newspaper, l'Osservatore Romano:

"What our contemporaries will undoubtedly remember, beyond the difficulties of conception and deficiencies of expression in this audacious attempt to reach a synthesis, is the testimomy of the coherent life of a man possessed by Christ in the depths of his soul. He was concerned with honoring both faith and reason, and anticipated the response to John Paul II's appeal: 'Be not afraid, open, open wide to Christ the doors of the immense domains of culture, civilization, and progress.[26]

Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J. said in 2004:[27]

In his own poetic style, the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin liked to meditate on the Eucharist as the first fruits of the new creation. In an essay called The Monstrance he describes how, kneeling in prayer, he had a sensation that the Host was beginning to grow until at last, through its mysterious expansion, 'the whole world had become incandescent, had itself become like a single giant Host.' Although it would probably be incorrect to imagine that the universe will eventually be transubstantiated, Teilhard correctly identified the connection between the Eucharist and the final glorification of the cosmos.

Cardinal Christoph Schnborn wrote in 2007:[28]

Hardly anyone else has tried to bring together the knowledge of Christ and the idea of evolution as the scientist (paleontologist) and theologian Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., has done. ... His fascinating vision ... has represented a great hope, the hope that faith in Christ and a scientific approach to the world can be brought together. ... These brief references to Teilhard cannot do justice to his efforts. The fascination which Teilhard de Chardin exercised for an entire generation stemmed from his radical manner of looking at science and Christian faith together.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his book Spirit of the Liturgy incorporates Teilhard's vision as a touchstone of the Catholic Mass:[29]

And so we can now say that the goal of worship and the goal of creation as a whole are one and the samedivinization, a world of freedom and love. But this means that the historical makes its appearance in the cosmic. The cosmos is not a kind of closed building, a stationary container in which history may by chance take place. It is itself movement, from its one beginning to its one end. In a sense, creation is history. Against the background of the modern evolutionary world view, Teilhard de Chardin depicted the cosmos as a process of ascent, a series of unions. From very simple beginnings the path leads to ever greater and more complex unities, in which multiplicity is not abolished but merged into a growing synthesis, leading to the Noosphere, in which spirit and its understanding embrace the whole and are blended into a kind of living organism. Invoking the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, Teilhard looks on Christ as the energy that strives toward the Noosphere and finally incorporates everything in its fullness. From here Teilhard went on to give a new meaning to Christian worship: the transubstantiated Host is the anticipation of the transformation and divinization of matter in the christological "fullness". In his view, the Eucharist provides the movement of the cosmos with its direction; it anticipates its goal and at the same time urges it on.

in July 2009, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said, "By now, no one would dream of saying that [Teilhard] is a heterodox author who shouldnt be studied."[30]

Pope Francis cites Teilhard in his encyclical Laudato si'.[2]

Sir Julian Huxley, evolutionary biologist and contributor to the modern synthesis, praised the thought of Teilhard de Chardin for looking at the way in which human development needs to be examined within a larger integrated universal sense of evolution.[31]

In 1961, the Nobel Prize-winner Peter Medawar, a British immunologist, wrote a scornful review of The Phenomenon Of Man for the journal Mind,[32] calling it "a bag of tricks" and saying that the author had shown "an active willingness to be deceived": "the greater part of it, I shall show, is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself".

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins called Medawar's review "devastating" and The Phenomenon of Man "the quintessence of bad poetic science".[33] Similarly, Steven Rose wrote that "Teilhard is revered as a mystic of genius by some, but amongst most biologists is seen as little more than a charlatan."[34]

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" by Theodosius Dobzhansky draws upon Teilhard's insistence that evolutionary theory provides the core of how man understands his relationship to nature, calling him "one of the great thinkers of our age". Key researchers credit Teilhard with the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis that accounts for natural selection in the light of Mendelian genetics.[citation needed]

Evolutionary biologist Jeremy Griffith described Teilhard as a "visionary" philosopher and a contemporary "truth-sayer" or "prophet".[35]

Brian Swimme wrote "Teilhard was one of the first scientists to realize that the human and the universe are inseparable. The only universe we know about is a universe that brought forth the human." [36]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on April 10.[37]George Gaylord Simpson named the most primitive and ancient genus of true primate, the Eocene genus Teilhardina.

Teilhard and his work continue to influence the arts and culture. Characters based on Teilhard appear in several novels, including Jean Telemond in Morris West's The Shoes of the Fisherman[38] (mentioned by name and quoted by Oskar Werner playing Fr. Telemond in the movie version of the novel) and Father Lankester Merrin in William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist.[39] In Dan Simmons' 198997 Hyperion Cantos, Teilhard de Chardin has been canonized a saint in the far future. His work inspires the anthropologist priest character, Paul Dur. When Dur becomes Pope, he takes Teilhard I as his regnal name.[40] Teilhard appears as a minor character in the play Fake by Eric Simonson, staged by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2009, involving a fictional solution to the infamous Piltdown Man hoax.

References range from occasional quotationsan auto mechanic quotes Teilhard in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly[41] to serving as the philosophical underpinning of the plot, as Teilhard's work does in Julian May's 198794 Galactic Milieu Series.[42] Teilhard also plays a major role in Annie Dillard's 1999 For the Time Being.[43] Teilhard is mentioned by name and the Omega Point briefly explained in Arthur C. Clarke's and Stephen Baxter's The Light of Other Days.[44] The title of the short-story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor is a reference to Teilhard's work. The American novelist Don DeLillo's 2010 novel Point Omega borrows its title and some of its ideas from Teilhard de Chardin. Robert Wright, in his book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, compares his own naturalistic thesis that biological and cultural evolution are directional and, possibly, purposeful, with Teilhard's ideas.

Teilhard's work also inspired philosophical ruminations by Italian laureate architect Paolo Soleri, artworks such as French painter Alfred Manessier's L'Offrande de la terre ou Hommage Teilhard de Chardin[45] and American sculptor Frederick Hart's acrylic sculpture The Divine Milieu: Homage to Teilhard de Chardin.[46] A sculpture of the Omega Point by Henry Setter, with a quote from Teilhard de Chardin, can be found at the entrance to the Roesch Library at the University of Dayton.[47]Edmund Rubbra's 1968 Symphony No. 8 is titled Hommage Teilhard de Chardin.

Several college campuses honor Teilhard. A building at the University of Manchester is named after him, as are residence dormitories at Gonzaga University and Seattle University.

The De Chardin Project, a play celebrating Teilhard's life, ran from November 20 to December 14, 2014 in Toronto, Canada.[48]The Evolution of Teilhard de Chardin, a documentary film on Teilhard's life, is expected to be released in 2015.[48]

The dates in parentheses are the dates of first publication in French and English. Most of these works were written years earlier, but Teilhard's ecclesiastical order forbade him to publish them because of their controversial nature. The essay collections are organized by subject rather than date, thus each one typically spans many years.

The rest is here:
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature graduallylet them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Dont try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Quotes (Author of The ...

By Anodea Judith Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a visionary French Jesuit, paleontologist, biologist, and philosopher, who spent the bulk of his life trying to integrate religious experience with natural science, most specifically Christian theology with theories of evolution. In this endeavor he became absolutely enthralled with the possibilities for humankind, which he saw as heading for an exciting convergence of systems, an "Omega point" where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity. Long before ecology was fashionable, he saw this unity he saw as being based intrinsically upon the spirit of the Earth:

"The Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the Earth." Teilhard de Chardin passed away a full ten years before James Lovelock ever proposed the "Gaia Hypothesis" which suggests that the Earth is actually a living being, a collosal biological super-system. Yet Chardin's writings clearly reflect the sense of the Earth as having its own autonomous personality, and being the prime center and director of our future -- a strange attractor, if you will -- that will be the guiding force for the synthesis of humankind.

"The phrase 'Sense of the Earth' should be understood to mean the passionate concern for our common destiny which draws the thinking part of life ever further onward. The only truly natural and real human unity is the spirit of the Earth. . . .The sense of Earth is the irresistable pressure which will come at the right moment to unite them (humankind) in a common passion.

"We have reached a crossroads in human evolution where the only road which leads forward is towards a common passion. . . To continue to place our hopes in a social order achieved by external violence would simply amount to our giving up all hope of carrying the Spirit of the Earth to its limits."

To this end, he suggested that the Earth in its evolutionary unfolding, was growing a new organ of consciousness, called the noosphere.The noosphere is analogous on a planetary level to the evolution of the cerebral cortex in humans. The noosphere is a "planetary thinking network" -- an interlinked system of consciousness and information, a global net of self-awareness, instantaneous feedback, and planetary communication. At the time of his writing, computers of any merit were the size of a city block, and the Internet was, if anything, an element of speculative science fiction. Yet this evolution is indeed coming to pass, and with a rapidity, that in Gaia time, is but a mere passage of seconds. In these precious moments, the planet is developing her cerebral cortex, and emerging into self-conscious awakening. We are indeed approaching the Omega point that Teilhard de Chardin was so excited about.

This convergence however, though it was predicted to occur through a global information network, was not a convergence of merely minds or bodies -- but of heart, a point that he made most fervently.

"It is not our heads or our bodies which we must bring together, but our hearts. . . . Humanity. . . is building its composite brain beneath our eyes. May it not be that tomorrow, through the logical and biological deepening of the movement drawing it together, it will find its heart, without which the ultimate wholeness of its power of unification can never be achieved?"

In his productive lifetime, Teilhard de Chardin wrote many books, which include the following:

BUILDING THE EARTH

by Anodea Judith, Dec. 96. SHAKTI7@aol.com

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - GaiaMind