At the end we will have a true liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host
- Teilhard de Chardin
Some of the church's faithful has been hounded and misunderstood throughout church history. In 1924, Teilhard was summoned to France to a meeting that led to his exile, censured of his books, and silence as a teacher in the church and even as a scientist. The church at that time could not understand some of his writings and his views challenging Augustine's original sin doctrine as well as supporting evolution as the way God made the heavens and the earth challenged the church's interpretations of scripture and it seemed to make God the author of evil.
Despite the suspicion, accusations, restrictions, rejections, and prohibitions, Teilhard remained a loyal child of the church and kept a vow of obedience to be silenced and he could not publish his books. Many of Teilhard's books did not get published until several years after his death in 1955. Teilhard was a man way ahead of his time so he was an embarrassment to the church at large at that time in history. John Paul the II gave an encyclical saying there is no contradiction between science and the Christian faith, between evolution and the Roman Catholic Church doctrines of faith.
Although the Roman Catholic Church has never officially exonerated Teilhard, an archbishop on behalf of John Paul II said he was a man possessed by Christ who tried to honor both faith and reason. Teilhard prayed a week earlier that if he hasn't been wrong, he begged God to allow him to die on Easter Sunday. He died on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955, at six o'clock in the evening.
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