Thomas Berry, In Memoriam

The time has come to lower our voices, to cease imposing our mechanistic patterns on the biological processes of the earth, to resist the impulse to control, to command, to force, to oppress, and to begin quite humbly to follow the guidance of the larger community on which all life depends. – Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, pg. xiv introduction

Fr. Thomas Berry, Passionist priest, internationally-recognized historian of cultures and “earth scholar,” passed away on June 1, 2009 at Well-Spring Retirement Community, Greensboro, North Carolina. He was 94.

Rev. Berry’s writings and lectures on the relation of humans with the cosmos and the earth have notably influenced the intellectual and spiritual history of the 20^th and early 21^st centuries. He was awarded seven honorary doctorates and was the author of a number of books, most notably: The Dream of the Earth, 1988, winner of the 1992 National Lannan Non-Fiction Award; The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Em, 1992, in collaboration with mathematical-cosmologist Brian Swimme; and The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future, 1999. Berry also authored eleven collections know as the Riverdale Papers.

“Thomas Berry will be remembered as one of the great religious environmental thinkers of our time. He was one of the first to suggest that the current environmental degradation comes from the loss of a sense of the Earth is a sacred community. He was truly a voice for the Earth,” said Fr. Joseph Mitchell, C.P., director of the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center located in Louisville.

Berry was a member of the Passionist Province of St. Paul of the Cross. His early career included teaching in China in 1948, but he left when Mao Tse Tung came to power in 1949. He continued his Asian studies in the U.S. at Seton Hall and Columbia Universities and also taught at the Asian Institute at St. John’s University (1961-1965). He was Associate Professor of Religion at Fordham University (1966-79) where he instituted the doctoral program in the History of Religions.

In 1970 Thomas inaugurated the Riverdale (NY) Center for Religious Research.  Annual conferences explored themes such as Energy: It’s Cosmic-Human Dimensions; The Future: Technological Society Man’s Covenant?; and The Ecological Age. Scholars from around the world came to the center to participate in rethinking their disciplines in light of newly-understood relations of humans to the earth. These activities culminated in the 1998 founding of the Thomas Berry Foundation, an integral part of the Harvard-based international Forum on Religious and Ecology (FORE).

Rev. Berry is survived by brothers Francis Xavier, Benedict Regis, Thomas Gabriel and Stephen Badin; a sister, Margaret, and many nieces and nephews.

Funeral services will be held in four places: St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, Greensboro, NC, June 3rd; Immaculate Conception Passionist Monastery Chapel, Jamaica, NY, 11 am, June 6^th; Mass and interment, Green Mountain Monastery, Greensboro, 11 am, June 8^th; and a public memorial service at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City, details to be arranged.

Donations honoring the deceased may be made to the Thomas Berry Foundation, c/o Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker, Department of Religious Studies, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837.

Please visit the official Thomas Berry Site.