Jesuits open Teilhard de Chardin Center in 'French Silicon Valley' (The Tablet)

On June 2, the Society of Jesus opened the Teilhard de Chardin Center in a Parisian suburb dubbed the “French Silicon Valley.”

The center, which includes a chapel, is intended to be a place of dialogue between reason and faith, the Vatican newspaper reported.

The center is named after the French philosopher and paleontologist Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (1881-1955). In 1962, during the pontificate of Pope St. John XXIII, the Holy Office issued a monitum (warning) with regard to his works. In 2017, the Pontifical Council for Culture, then led by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, asked Pope Francis to rescind the monitum.

In 2018, Dr. John Slattery, now Director of the Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law at Duquesne University, wrote that Teilhard’s “legacy of eugenics and racism can’t be ignored.” Professor John Haught of Georgetown University responded with an article, “Trashing Teilhard”—to which Dr. Slattery responded with “Teilhard and Eugenics.”