Frédéric-Marie Bergounioux

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Frédéric-Marie Bergounioux O.F.M. Cap. (15 October 1900 – 12 March 1983) was a French Roman Catholic priest, paleontologist, geologist, theologian and professor at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse.

Biography

Edmond André Bergounioux was born in Lanouaille. He joined the priesthood at the age of 21, becoming a Franciscan monk in 1925 after his military service and taking the religious name Frédéric-Marie. At the age of 28, he studied science at the Faculty of Science in Toulouse where he took geology courses from Louis Mengaud, who had just succeeded Charles Jacob.

In 1930, he made his solemn profession on February 25, sub-diaconate on March 9, diaconate on March 15, priesthood on the 16th, obtained the certificate of General Botany on June 28 and certificate of General Geology on October 27.

On November 18, 1931, he was appointed lecturer in geology at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse and began research on fossil chelonians, publishing on this subject and writing some articles on Franciscan theology. His studies included in the article Monographie paléontologique de la faune de Vertébrés des sables de Montpellier (Paleontological monograph of the vertebrate fauna of the Montpellier sands) allowed him to revise the determination of the turtles and described several new species including Trionyx rotundiformis.[1]

He defended his doctoral thesis in Paris on the fossil chelonians of the Aquitaine Basin on March 30, 1935, published by the Geological Society of France.[2] Like most paleontologists of that time, he considered orthogenesis and heredity as the main mechanisms of evolution, confusing internal and external mechanisms of evolution. In 1935, Bergounioux tried to distinguish what depends on genetic mutations and what depends on the environment. For what comes under adaptation to the environment, he used the term "pre-adaptation" introduced by Lucien Cuénot, which is used for a random mutation, advantageous for the individual, who has acquired it. This adaptation corresponds to a genetic determinism rather than to the environment.[3]

He became professor of geology at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse in 1936, then of prehistoric anthropology at the faculty of philosophy of the Catholic Institute in 1937. He became a collaborator of the geological map service of France in 1938.

He was mobilized in 1939 before being returned to the civil service in 1940 with the Croix de Guerre and citations. He resumed his teaching at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse with his fieldwork and research on the coal basins of northeastern Aquitaine. He was responsible for theological conferences and publications. He also gave his support to certain Resistance networks.

In 1941 he published a book entitled La France et le problème du pétrole. He taught sedimentary petrography at the École du Pétrole in 1944.

From 1939, he began to deepen his reflections on Evolution, the origin of life and natural philosophy. With the Jesuit Jules Carles (1902–2000), Paul Ricœur and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, he published an article on "The Problems of Evolution" in the journal Recherches et Débats. He participated in a debate during the February 7, 1944 session of the Geological Society of France to respond to a book by Georges Salet and Louis Lafont, L'évolution régressive published in 1943 by Éditions Franciscaines, which defended creationism against transformism. He condemned this thesis and wrote: "For them, the complete succession of beings leading to Man would have been realized before the Primary. It was the original sin committed by the first human couple, which disrupted the established harmonious order and marked the end of the golden age. Since that time, we have witnessed a progressive degradation of plant and animal species".[4] In 1947, he returned to the criticism of the book L'évolution régressive in Progrès ou régression?

In 1943, he published with André Glory Les Premiers hommes, précis d'anthropologie préhistorique and from 1944 gave lectures on Man, his origins and his future. In 1944, he became a research fellow at the CNRS and assistant collaborator in the geological map service of France.

In 1945, he published two philosophical works Les Harmonies du monde moderne and Esquisse d'une histoire de la vie. He was appointed senior researcher at the CNRS in 1954.

In 1949, he began to work and publish with Fernand Crouzel on fossil vertebrates, in particular Mastodons. After a conference in Lisbon in May 1950, he became interested in the fauna found in the sands of Lisbon which resulted in a publication in 1953. He became interested in Tunisia in 1951.

He continued his religious studies and lectures and addressed the question of the origins of Man. He published La Préhistoire et ses problèmes (1957), Les religions des préhistoriques et des primitifs (1958; with Joseph Goetz), followed in 1961 by Origine et destin de la vie.

His intellectual contacts led him to write the preface to Wisdom of Life (1962) written by Paul Voivenel, the latter having illustrated the conclusion of his book Origin and Destiny of Life. He also gave an afterword for the book La Marche au Soleil by Adam Saint-Moore, in 1965.

He retired from the CNRS in 1970 and retired to a Franciscan convent that he restored during his tenure with donations. He produced his last geological publication with Fernand Crouzel in 1973.

Frédéric-Marie Bergounioux died in Toulouse.

Works

For a complete bibliography of Father Bergounioux, see "Publications du Père F.-M. Bergounioux," Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, Vol. LXXXV, No. 4 (1984), pp. 5–15.

Notes

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References

External links

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  1. ↑ Roman, Frédéric (1935). "Les Collections de Géologie et de Paléontologie de la Faculté des Sciences de Lyon," Annales de la Société Linnéenne de Lyon, Vol. LXXVIII (1935), p. 248.
  2. ↑ Bunlet, J. (1935). "Doctorat ès Sciences," Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, Institut catholique de Toulouse, 1935, pp. XXII–XXV
  3. ↑ Grimoult, Cédric (2000). Le développement de la paléontologie contemporaine. Genève/Paris: Librairie Droz, pp. 155–56.
  4. ↑ Tort, Patrick (2016). Qu'est-ce que le matérialisme? Introduction à l'analyse des complexes discursifs. Belin/Paris, note 433.
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