Is Teilhard de Chardin being rehabilitated? And who is that, anyway?

Is Pope Francis bringing a controversial theologian back into vogue?

The French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has been called many things since his death in New York in 1955.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., pictured in 1955. Archives des jésuites de France via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0). 

To some, he is a creative thinker “in the same league as Einstein.” To others, he is “the most influential heretic of the 20t…