Thomas Berry, CP (November 9, 1914 – June 1, 2009) was an American Catholic priest, cultural historian, and scholar of the world's religions, especially Asian traditions. Later, as he studied Earth history and evolution, he called himself a "geologian". He rejected the labels "theologian" and "ecotheologian" as too narrow and not descriptive of his religions arguments. He was drawn early on to respond to the growing ecological and climate crisis and proposed the need for a "New Story" of evolution in 1978. In this essay, he suggested that a deep understanding of the unfolding and evolution of the universe is necessary as a guide for human inspiration, individually and as a species. Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent in despoiling the planet, is poised to embrace a new role as a vital part of a larger, interdependent Earth community, consisting of a "communion of subjects not a collection of objects". He felt that we were at a critical turning point, moving out of the Cenozoic era and entering into a new evolutionary phase, which would either be an Ecozoic Era, characterized by mutually-enhancing human-Earth relations, or a Techozoic Era, where we dominate and exploit the planet via our technological mastery. Berry said the transformation of humanity's priorities will not come easily. It requires what he called "the great work"—the title of one of his books—in four institutional realms: the political and legal order; the economic and industrial world; education; and religion.
Biography Born to William and Bess Berry in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1914, Berry was the third of 13 children. His father founded Berico Fuels in 1924. At age 11 he had an epiphany in a meadow, which became a primary reference point for the rest of his life. He later elaborated this experience into a set of "Twelve Principles for Understanding the Universe", which became the basis for his contributions to Earth Jurisprudence. These principles are based on this perspective: The universe, the solar system, and planet Earth in themselves and in their evolutionary emergence constitute for the human community the primary revelation of that ultimate mystery whence all things emerge into being. Berry entered a monastery of the Passionist order in 1933, where he adopted the name "Thomas", after Thomas Aquinas. He was ordained a priest in 1942. He began studying cultural history, especially the world's religions. He received his doctorate in history from The Catholic University of America, with a thesis on Giambattista Vico's philosophy of history. He then studied Chinese language and Chinese culture in China (for a year) and in the US, and learned Sanskrit for the study of Hinduism. He published a book on Buddhism (1966) and one on the Religions of India (1971). He taught Asian religions at universities in New Jersey and New York (1956–1965). He then became the founder and director of the graduate program in the history of religions at Fordham University (1966–1979). There he directed over twenty doctoral dissertations. During this period he also founded and directed the Riverdale Center of Religious Research in Riverdale, New York (1970–1995). In addition to Asian religions, he studied and taught classes on Native American cultures and shamanism. He assisted in an educational program for the T'boli tribal peoples of South Cotabato, on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. From his academic beginnings as a historian of world cultures and religions, Berry developed into a historian of the Earth and its evolutionary processes. He was influenced by the work of the Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and he served as president of the American Teilhard Association (1975–1987). Berry took Teilhard's major ideas on evolution and expanded them into an epic story to which we belong. To that end, with the cosmologist Brian Swimme he wrote The Universe Story (1992). The multimedia project Journey of the Universe (2011) was also inspired by this perspective. This is a film (dedicated to Berry), a book, a series of conversations on DVDs and podcasts, and online courses from Yale/Coursera. Berry's work inspired his younger brother Jim to establish the Center for Reflection on the Second Law, which held annual conferences near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from 1984 until Jim's passing in 1997, and which featured Thomas as a frequent speaker. In 1995, Berry returned to Greensboro, North Carolina. While nominally retired, he continued to write, lecture, and receive friends at his home. In a tribute to Berry, Mary Evelyn Tucker said that his books—The Dream of the Earth (1988 reprinted, 2006), The Universe Story (with Brian Swimme, 1992), and The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (1999)—are "major contributions to discussions on the environment". A collection of his essays, Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community (2006), was jointly published by Sierra Club Books and the University of California Press. He completed two final books of essays in 2009, The Sacred Universe and The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth. Berry also contributed two introductory essays ("Economics: Its Effects on the Life Systems of the World" and "The Earth: A New Context for Religious Unity") to the volume Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology, in which Brian Swimme, Caroline Richards, Gregory Baum and others discuss the implications of Berry's thought for a range of disciplines and paradigms. Berry's "Twelve Principles for Understanding the Universe and the Role of the Human in the Universe Process" offer a postscript to this 1987 work. He died in 2009 at the age of 94.
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