Lumen, you may be right.  I simply took that info off of the fly leaf/cover of a book on the man I read some time ago, a book wherein what Chardin was exploring profoundly influenced me.

That said,  I do know that the Vatican hardly embraced the guy and what he as positing.  He was exiled to China, having to give up teaching, and his France.  Not unsurprisingly, decades later, no less than Pope Benedict saw the guy in a very different (and positive light.)  

That kind of thing usually doesn't happen all that much in science.  A hypothesis can be shot down, but it's done with experiment, facts, and directly addressing the point. The thought is left to fly or fail on its merits.  The church has a pretty long history of taking a different approach, wherein so much is about the exercise of power and control.