Obituary

Fr Thomas Berry

OBITUARY

The American Passionist priest Thomas Berry, who died recently at the age of 94, was the most important and insightful Catholic commentator on environmental issues in the second half of the twentieth century, writes Seán McDonagh. 

He is best known in the English-speaking Catholic world for his writings and lecturing on cosmology and ecology. Because of his efforts to free religion, and particularly Christian theology, from the constraints of an exclusively homocentric perspective and relate them to the wider universe, he often presented himself as a "geologian" or "Earth scholar". In 1989, Newsweek described him as "the most provocative figure among the new breed of eco-theologians". There were, of course, many other aspects to Berry's life. 

He would recall the delight he took in a particular meadow near his first home in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he could hear the singing of the crickets and take pleasure in the wild flowers. According to Berry, "Whatever fosters this meadow is good and whatever does harm to this meadow is not good." Good economics would help protect this meadow; good religion would enable us to experience the divine in the meadow. Even in his early years Berry could see how industry and technology were about to rip up meadows and other crucial ecosystems locally and around the world. I remember him pointing out to me that his life spanned the rise of the automobile. In his lifetime he was able to track the profound impact this technology has had on the global landscape. 

Berry entered the Passionist community in 1935. It was an inspired choice as it gave him long hours during which he could study. Berry used the time between the Office of Matins in the early morning and the Office of Lauds at 6 a.m. to develop a study regime that marked him out as one of the most erudite people I have ever met. He steeped himself in the wisdom of the Western tradition with its two streams, one flowing from Jerusalem and the other from Athens. 

After ordination in 1942 he went to the Catholic University of America in Washington DC and pursued a doctoral programme in cultural history. His thesis on the philosophy of Giambattista Vico had a profound impact on Berry's own intellectual perspective. Like Vico, Berry began seeking a unifying framework in which to understand a world culture in profound transition and with newly emerging problems. After completing his doctorate Berry was assigned to work as a missionary in China. His time there was cut short by the victory of the Communist Party in 1949. After he was deported from China, Berry kept up an active interest in Chinese language and culture, later studying Sanskrit and Buddhism. 

The publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring in 1962 had a profound impact on Thomas Berry. Once again he set out to study the intellectual roots of the modern scientific, technological world. Berry began to call attention to the negative aspects of technology, particularly as specific technologies, such as the internal combustion engine began to wreak havoc on the natural world, through, for example, climate change. 

Berry, of course, was not anti-science. In fact, he was fascinated by the knowledge which modern science had discovered about our universe, our earth and life on earth. He used this data to weave a "new story" or a functional cosmology which traced the emergent relationship which human beings and everything else on earth had to that initial moment of origin, 13.7 billion years ago. He hoped that this story would give humans a new sense of their connection with all reality and, furthermore, that it might provide us with a moral compass in our quest to devise ways of living on the planet which would not destroy the habitats of other creatures. Many of these ideas were teased out at the Riverdale Center of Religious Research which he founded in the Bronx on the banks of the Hudson River. It was a place of intellectual ferment from 1970 until the mid-1990s. 

In his last book, Evening Thoughts (Sierra Club Books, 2006), he sets the agenda for every human being for the twenty-first century. He wrote: "All the creatures of earth are looking to us for their destiny. Among these are our children and our grandchildren, who depend on our decisions for the sustenance and flourishing of the life-systems of the planet." Thomas Berry shared his knowledge generously with all who came in contact with him whether they were scholars of high renown or tribal people. I remember the delight he took in listening and talking to the indigenous T'bolis people during his visit to Mindanao, Philippines, in 1982. His gentle and supportive presence will be missed by all who knew him well and by countless others who have read his books or heard him speak. 

Fr Thomas Berry, born 9 November 1914, Greensboro, North Carolina; died 1 June 2009, Greensboro.