Panel discussion on Laudato Si’ and Teilhard de Chardin points to a new type of planetized life by Michael Centore

A panel discussion hosted by the Georgetown Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life on April 28 advanced a key notion set forth in the Synod’s final document: “Creation itself speaks of unity and sharing, of diversity and of variously interconnected forms of life” (154).

“Everything Is Connected: Laudato Si’, Teilhard de Chardin, and Catholic Social Teaching” brought together four experienced panelists to examine the relationship between the teachings of Pope Francis, the theology of Teilhard, and their mutually reinforcing call to care for God’s creation. The event was held in-person at the Intercultural Center (ICC) Auditorium at Georgetown and online, and was co-sponsored by Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.

Moderator Kim Daniels, director of the Initiative of Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, opened by paying tribute to the late Pope Francis. She recalled “the feeling of hope we had that night” when Francis was elected in 2013 and praised “the emphasis that he provided to Catholic Social Teaching,” particularly his teachings on ecology.

Panelist Frank Frost, codirector with his wife, Mary, of the documentary Teilhard: Visionary Scientist, elaborated, “This pope chose the name Francis to identify with Francis of Assisi, for his love of nature and care for the poor. That became something he taught and lived.”

Other panelists reflected on Francis’s legacy and the significance of Laudato Si’. Franciscan Sr. Ilia Delio, author numerous books on the relationship between science and religion, called Laudato Si’ “a landmark encyclical” that “did not focus within the church but took an outward vision of the whole-earth community.”

For Diana Marin, program manager for young adult mobilization at Catholic Climate Covenant, “Laudato Si’ was written for everyone. It’s a letter for all of us, including our legislators.” Marin also praised the encyclical for “uplifting the role of advocacy within our church.”

Event attendees were treated to an eight-minute clip from Frost’s documentary, which he prefaced by defining as “not a theological or philosophical lecture. It’s a human story of a very complex person who struggled in many ways throughout his life, particularly the church.”

Scenes from the documentary described Teilhard as “a paleontologist dedicated with equal passion to God and to the earth.” They traced his lifelong “interior struggle to reconcile his love of nature and his love of the divine spirit” and touched on his central insights: that all matter is infused with spirit, and that the evolution of creation is an ongoing, dynamic process.

Sr. Libby Osgood, an associate professor of sustainable design engineering at the University of Prince Edward Island and member of the Congregation of Notre dame de Montreal, said that Teilhard “is not credited for the amount of influences he’s had on the world.”

Prior to her entrance into religious life, Osgood was a NASA engineer. She said that Teilhard’s commitment to his religious vows alongside scientific inquiry inspired her spiritual journey, and that his work “gave me permission to be an engineer and live my faith.”

One of the central tenets of Teilhard’s teachings is “God being in everything we do,” she said. She referenced the many “levels of love” within Teilhard’s personal vocation and added, “The whole story is a story of love.”

Delio explained that the church of Teilhard’s era was “steeped in hierarchy with abstract doctrines.” He “felt the church had become too out of touch,” especially as science had “literally changed the geometry” of what we knew of the world, she said.

In Teilhard’s view, evolution is “the emergence into complexity” of matter and consciousness. The church is the head of “of a body in formation” and the universe is akin to a “Theotokos,” a God-bearing Mother Earth. The church is “right at the heart of that life of what is being born,” and thus is “more than institution alone,” Delio said.

Frost said that Teilhard was “desperate to let the church know they now had a way to bridge the gap between scientists and the church.” The contemporary church “needs to get into its preaching [ideas] of cosmogenesis, of cosmic evolutionary thought,” he added.

Marin pointed to young people within the church as a sign of hope. She quoted two young adults, Emily Burke and Henry Glynn, who were students at Creighton University when they told Pope Francis that “Young people value authenticity and deplore hypocrisy.” These tendencies have carried over into their advocacy work, as they “encourage bishops and diocesan leaders to make commitments to climate action” and “not squander that potential for transformation” set forth in Laudato Si’.

That encyclical “completely reenergized our church,” Marin continued. She cited its influence on the Paris Agreement and the way it “provided a role for religion” to contribute to the global conversation on climate change as examples of its “global impact.”

“The climate crisis affects all of us. I hope that Pope Francis’s legacy through Laudato Si’ is that it encourages us to have dialogue” rooted in Catholic Social Teaching and integral ecology, she said.

Delio drew a connection between Pope Francis’s namesake, Francis of Assisi, and Teilhard. Both “had a love of matter” and lived out of their belief that “God has taken on matter” through the incarnation.

Delio described this God as “a God who is humble, a God who is bent over in love.” Such an understanding of God informs one’s view of marginalized peoples: “Those left outside the community [mean] leaving God outside as well.” Only by going to “those who have been left out,” as Pope Francis modeled so many times throughout his papacy, can “this earth grow into a more unified wholeness,” she said.

Panelists expressed confidence that the church would continue along an ecologically minded path in the post-Francis era.

“It’s the church of the people, it’s us,” Marin said. “We are on a continual journey, a continual movement. I trust that the Spirit will continue to work in that [ecological] space.”

“I think we need great hope,” Osgood added. “The people around us don’t need less hope. They need more.”

Osgood reminded attendees that “Hope takes work. Hope involves suffering.”

Delio returned to the theme of “being formed in a medieval church” that needs to renew its theology and practice to “aspire to a whole-earth community” or “a new type of planetized life.”

“We are being baptized into evolution,” she said. “It’s all about relationality, through and through.” ♦

Michael Centore is the editor of Today’s American Catholic.

Image: Greg Rakozy / Unsplash