Vatican newspaper devotes page to Teilhard de Chardin in honor of 70th anniversary of his death

April 10, 2025

L’Osservatore Romano devoted a full page in its April 9 edition to Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), the French Jesuit philosopher and paleontologist whose support for eugenics continued even after the Holocaust.

Under the banner “Il 10 aprile di settant’anni fa moriva Pierre Teilhard de Chardin” [On April 10, 70 years ago, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died], the Vatican newspaper published two articles:

• “Quella preghiera senza pane né vino con il mondo offerto come sacrificio“ [That prayer, without bread or wine, with the world offered as a sacrifice], subtitled “the cosmic vision of the French theologian and the magisterium of Pope Francis,” by Father Antonio Spadaro, SJ
• “Centro gravitazionale della nostra forza“ [Gravitational center of our force], subtitled “the theological significance of evolution for the philosopher and priest,” by Giovanni Salmeri

The articles are the latest in a series of recent Vatican tributes to the French Jesuit, who was the subject of a posthumous Holy Office monitum (warning) against his writings:

• In a March 3 message to the Pontifical Academy of Life, Pope Francis praised Father Teilhard for “his attempt—certainly partial and unfinished, but daring and inspiring—to enter seriously into dialogue with the sciences.”
• In its March 27 edition, the Vatican newspaper devoted six articles in praise of Father Teilhard, with one headline describing him as “a Moses of the 20th century.”
• Between March 27 and April 7, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican publishing house, posted 25 tweets related to its newly published biography of Father Teilhard. The biography, written by Mercè Prats, includes a preface by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, the prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education. The prelate wrote that “a particularly significant aspect of Teilhard’s thought, which Prats explores with great sensitivity, is his profound optimism” and that “another significant contribution of Teilhard is his reflection on love as a cosmic force.”
• Since March 27, Father Antonio Spadaro, SJ, undersecretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, has highlighted the legacy of Father Teilhard in ten tweets. “Since he was a child he felt called to reach out towards the freshness of reality, to seek it, to find it everywhere,” Father Spadaro wrote in one tweet. “Teilhard has always known that at the bottom of things there is an incandescence that has pushed him to love matter for spiritual reasons.”

Father Spadaro

In his new article for the Vatican newspaper on Teilhard and the teaching of Pope Francis, Father Spadaro recalled the Pope’s tribute to Father Teilhard after a 2023 Mass in Mongolia.

“The Pontiff’s gesture was not only commemorative,” said Father Spadaro. “It illuminated a profound harmony between the cosmic vision of Teilhard de Chardin and the very heart of his teaching. This is not an uncritical recovery or a total doctrinal adherence, but rather the valorization of a spiritual and theological intuition that, for a long time, represented one of the most prophetic—and most marginalized—voices of 20th-century Catholicism.”

Teilhard “always kept together the rigor of science and the ardor of faith,” added Father Spadaro, who in 2015 wrote the preface to a new edition of The Priest, a 1918 work by Father Teilhard. Father Spadaro is also the author of the preface to a new edition of Father Teilhard’s autobiography, which will be published on April 18.

“In the great integral vision of Laudato si’, the Pontiff assumes some of the fundamental intuitions of the French Jesuit, while transfiguring them,” Father Spadaro continued, adding:

The initial ecclesial reception of Teilhard’s thought was prudent. The 1962 Monitum of the Holy Office, while not formally condemning it, warned against interpretations considered speculative or incompatible with Catholic doctrine. However, Paul VI and John Paul II had already initiated a more open reflection. Joseph Ratzinger, as a theologian, recognized Teilhard’s merit in reinterpreting Pauline Christology in the light of the modern conception of the cosmos.

Pope Francis, in continuity with his predecessors, has brought this reception to maturity. But there is also in him a specific appreciation for the figure of the Jesuit Teilhard, which goes beyond theology. In the interview I conducted with him in 2013, three months after his election, for La Civiltà Cattolica and the periodicals of the Society of Jesus, Francis outlined the type of Jesuit who corresponds to his ecclesial vision, stating that “he must be a person with incomplete thought, with open thought.” And again: “The Jesuit always thinks, continuously, looking at the horizon towards which he must go, having Christ at the center.” The portrait corresponds to Teilhard, a free, creative man, deeply immersed in his time, yet always striving towards the Omega Point.

Making no reference to Father Teilhard’s views on race and eugenics, which have come under increased scholarly scrutiny over the past decade, Father Spadaro concluded:

Teilhard de Chardin does not offer easy answers, but he questions profoundly. Pope Francis, in remembering his name, brings him back into that great Catholic tradition that knows how to welcome prophecy, recognize boldness and preserve spiritual intelligence. A Church that prays on the altar of the world cannot but look with gratitude to this Jesuit of the frontier, in whom love for Christ has become fire in the heart of matter.

Giovanni Salmeri

In his article for the Vatican newspaper, Giovanni Salmeri, a history professor at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, examined the theological significance of evolution in Father Teilhard’s thought.

“In an illuminating page, Teilhard de Chardin responds to the objection that maintains that it makes little difference whether God is conceived as the instantaneous author of creation or as the subject of an evolutionary creation,” Salmeri wrote. “In short: only evolution truly allows us to overcome, on the level of thought (and Teilhard adds: of adoration!), the Aristotelian image of a God external and indifferent to the world, or the modern image of a watchmaker God who, after having conceived the mechanisms, calmly lets them work. Teilhard thinks that a watch would ultimately have no good reason to love the watchmaker.”

Salmeri added, “But does this reform of the divine image have anything to do with Jesus Christ? Teilhard’s answer is not only positive, but may even seem exaggerated.”

In the eight articles that L’Osservatore Romano has published in honor of Father Teilhard over the past two weeks—nine if one counts an article on Teilhard’s influence on the speakers at a conference at the Lateran Basilica—Salmeri alone referred to Father Teilhard’s views on race and eugenics. Salmeri wrote:

But those who know the work of Teilhard de Chardin know well that one also comes across statements that leave one deeply perplexed, either philosophically or from the point of view of the Christian faith. A famous case is that of the laudatory tone with which Teilhard de Chardin speaks of “eugenics,” imagining a future in which the brute forces of natural selection will be replaced by human intelligence, and of statements that assign people to various evolutionary stages, statements that sound racist without too many turns of phrase.

In both cases, the reader wonders whether the enthusiasm for the idea of ​​evolution has not exceeded the right limit and whether at times a clearer division of the planes (for example material and spiritual, natural and supernatural), even if it is judged temporary, does not help to avoid aberrant misunderstandings. Paul’s invitation to critical thinking also applies to Teilhard de Chardin: “evaluate everything, hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

 

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