Thread: What if Teilhard de Chardin became Pope in 1939

It's an interesting idea, but I think it would require a substantial rewrite of church history to make a plausible alternate time-line, to my knowledge he was never even in a position to become a Bishop. I think he was just one of those people who's ideas could never have been appreciated in their time. Even today, his work is highly at odds with official Church doctrine and I doubt if it will ever be endorsed.

Thanks for tipping me off to the interesting character de Chardin,
who I had never heard of.

However, as snowden points out, de Chardin had such theological
difficulties with the Roman Catholic Church as to make him too
implausible a candidate for papal election.

I think a more likely candidate would be de Chardin's near-contemporary
and fellow Jesuit-Cosmologist Georges Lemaitre, who might fairly claim
to be the originator of the Big Bang theory:



Georges Lemaitre, Father of the Big Bang

(from link):

According to the Big Bang theory, the expansion of the observable universe began with the explosion of a single particle at a definite point in time. This startling idea first appeared in scientific form in 1931, in a paper by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian cosmologist and Catholic priest. The theory, accepted by nearly all astronomers today, was a radical departure from scientific orthodoxy in the 1930s...

'A Day Without Yesterday': Georges Lemaitre & the Big Bang

(from link):

...Lemaitre's calculations showed that the universe had to be either shrinking or expanding. But while Einstein imagined an unknown force -- a cosmological constant -- which kept the world stable, Lemaitre decided that the universe was expanding. He came to this conclusion after observing the reddish glow, known as a red shift, surrounding objects outside of our galaxy. If interpreted as a Doppler effect, this shift in color meant that the galaxies were moving away from us...

Lemaitre suggested that the world had a definite beginning in which all its matter and energy were concentrated at one point:

If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time.

In January 1933, both Lemaitre and Einstein traveled to California for a series of seminars. After the Belgian detailed his theory, Einstein stood up, applauded, and said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."

As far as I know Lemaitre has always been considered theologically
orthodox.

I have misgivings over whether Lemaitre, de Chardin, or anyone else
could have altered history for the better as an alternate Pope.

Fascism was the greatest threat of the time to Democracy and the
heritage of the Western Enlightenment, and the Roman Catholic Church
was virtually useless in opposition.

IMO only such drastic measures as excommunication and interdict,
widely employed, might have driven a wedge beween the fascist tyrants
and their many Catholic subjects. Doing so seems never to have occurred
to anyone at all within the Papal policy-making organization, and it is
fair to wonder why it might occur to such men as Lemaitre and
de Chardin but not others.

Originally Posted by John Drake

I know this is unlikely but it is possible. He was world famous as both an anthropologist and a theologian so I can see some factions in the Church getting behind the idea.

In any case, assume it happens. How does this change Church and World history

I would say in worst case Hitler had destroyed the Vatican, had cowned himselve to the german-blooded leader of all religions and the new imperator of the whole roman empire including Antarctica and today the catholic church could be as famous in Europe like it is in the North of Africa. Or with other words: No one knows. There are no reverse experiments in history - history is always an irreversible reality.

Originally Posted by John Drake

I know this is unlikely but it is possible. He was world famous as both an anthropologist and a theologian so I can see some factions in the Church getting behind the idea.

In any case, assume it happens. How does this change Church and World history

What changes so he gets elected Pope?
Is it because he has different views more in line with the Church thinking of the time or is it because the Church is more in line with his views at that period.

In a system where the leader appoints the people who will elect the next leader, it's hard to make dramatic change.

Originally Posted by USViking

Thanks for tipping me off to the interesting character de Chardin,
who I had never heard of.

However, as snowden points out, de Chardin had such theological
difficulties with the Roman Catholic Church as to make him too
implausible a candidate for papal election.

I think a more likely candidate would be de Chardin's near-contemporary
and fellow Jesuit-Cosmologist Georges Lemaitre, who might fairly claim
to be the originator of the Big Bang theory:



Georges Lemaitre, Father of the Big Bang

(from link):




'A Day Without Yesterday': Georges Lemaitre & the Big Bang

(from link):




As far as I know Lemaitre has always been considered theologically
orthodox.

I have misgivings over whether Lemaitre, de Chardin, or anyone else
could have altered history for the better as an alternate Pope.

Fascism was the greatest threat of the time to Democracy and the
heritage of the Western Enlightenment, and the Roman Catholic Church
was virtually useless in opposition.

IMO only such drastic measures as excommunication and interdict,
widely employed, might have driven a wedge beween the fascist tyrants
and their many Catholic subjects. Doing so seems never to have occurred
to anyone at all within the Papal policy-making organization, and it is
fair to wonder why it might occur to such men as Lemaitre and
de Chardin but not others.

I myself had never really heard of Lemaitre until recently. I had thought it was George Gamow who did Big Bang, but now realize he actually just expanded on Lemaitres's work and popularized it.

In any case I didn't bring up the 1939 date so as to say how he would influence the war but because that was when PiusXII got the job so that would be the first chance he had.

And you're right, there's really no way to make this one fly without changing things so much that de Chardin probably wouldn't have come up with his ideas anyway. It just fascinates me that we have this guy who basically predicted the consequences of the Internet in the 1930's from combining evolution with theology.