A DMIR A L B R E T T GIROIR ’ 7 8
Driven By Faith & Audacity BY CHRISTIAN BAUTISTA ’06
S
ome 172 years ago, an enterprising cohort of Jesuits in France established the Jesuit College of Mongré in Villefranche-sur-Saône. Amidst the 1848 Révolution de Février—the February Revolution—and the birth of the French Second Republic, the founders of the school could hardly have known that it would persist until the present day. Their boldness was rewarded when a half century later a young Pierre Teilhard de Chardin entered their tutelage from the nearby tiny village of Orcines. Destined to take up the mantle of many Jesuit scientists before him, Chardin would profoundly impact the Jesuit, Catholic, and secular worlds. A paleontologist, geologist, and philosopher, Chardin would later write: What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but expressing them….The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. Blue Jay graduates will note the conspicuous founding year of the Jesuit school in Mongré, and indeed
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