The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin

The following excerpt is by the superior of Teilhard at the service for the repose of his soul. It's contained within the appendix of de Lubac's book with the title of this post.

His religious faith was the soul of his scientific effort and of his intellectual quest. Few priestly lives, I imagine, have been so completely a single, integral life.

...At a time when a gulf seemed to be widening between the most living elements in the modern world and the Church, when those men whose passion for scientific research or for the advancement of man was most intense were turning away from the Catholic faith, Pere Teilhard had met with an experience that was directly contrary.

...The modern world, as a vital experience had shown him, had need of Jesus Christ, and could be saved only by Jesus Christ.

...To Nietzche's reproach that Christians did not behave as though they had been saved, Pere Teilhard's mere existence was sufficient answer. He gave witness to the victory of Jesus Christ, and in unmistakable fashion it was manifest that he had been saved.

...His boldness derived from an ingenuous filial freedom within a faith that had been his since his childhood, and he completely possessed by an intrepid confidence in the victory of Jesus Christ.

...He despaired of no one. He had a passionate faith in man, in whom he saw, as through a transparency, the active presence of Jesus Christ.