The Rev. Thomas Berry, a Roman Catholic priest who called himself a ''geologian'' and whose influential writings were an early call to humanity to save nature in order to save itself, died in his birthplace, Greensboro, N.C., on Monday. He was 94.
His death was announced by his foundation on its website, www.thomasberry.org.
Berry's books and lectures inspired a devoted lineage of academicians and environmentalists to explore religion, human nature and ecology.
He left the monastic life for decades of study of global cultural and religious history and then, beginning in the 1980s, wrote a string of books relating cultural and spiritual evolution to the natural history of the planet and the universe.
Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent glorying in itself and despoiling the world, was poised to embrace its role as a vital part of the larger, interdependent ''communion of subjects'' in the cosmos. The result, he wrote, would be a new era, which he called the Ecozoic, following 65 million years of the Cenozoic era.
In this new era, he hoped for concrete changes like population control (he criticized the Catholic Church for not doing more in this regard) and respecting and preserving the habitats of all living things as a fundamental right.
He said the transformation of humanity's priorities would not come easily. It would require what he called ''the great work'' -- the title of one of his books -- in four realms of endeavor: the political and legal order; the economic and industrial world; education; and religion.
Colleagues and admirers say he left an imprint on fields ranging from childhood education to green architecture, not only through his writing but also through his persona.
FOCUS ON NATURE
William Nathan Berry, named for his father, was born on Nov. 9, 1914, in Greensboro, the third of 13 children. He alluded to how his focus on the spiritual power of nature grew out of exploring woods and fields as a child, particularly his stumbling upon a lily-dotted meadow when he was about 11.
He later recalled the insight that shaped his thinking: ''Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformation is good; what is opposed to this meadow or negates it is not good.''
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When he was 20, he sought to remove himself from a world he recalled as ''crassly commercial'' in a 2001 profile in The National Catholic Reporter, and entered a monastery of the Passionist Order of the Catholic Church, taking the name Thomas. He was ordained in 1942, but pursued the life of a scholar, receiving a doctorate from the Catholic University of America with a dissertation on the philosophy of history.
He traveled to China in 1948 to teach at Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing, but with the rise of Mao Zedong, returned to the United States a year later. He studied Chinese language and culture at Seton Hall University and Sanskrit and South Asian culture at Columbia, then served as a United States Army chaplain in Germany from 1951 to 1954.
Berry returned to teaching, first at Seton Hall and St. John's University. From 1966 to 1979, he taught at Fordham University.
He is best known for his later writing on the human place in the cosmos, beginning with ''The Dream of the Earth'' in 1988.
Berry is survived by a sister, Margaret, of Greensboro, and four brothers: Francis, Stephen and Thomas, all of Greensboro, and Benedict, of Charlotte, N.C.
We will be at the funeral celebration of his life in Greensboro on Wednesday, June 3rd. Thomas will be buried at the Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro, Vermont on June 8th. We are also planning a memorial service in New York this September at the Cathedral of St John the Divine where Paul Winter will play and Brian Swimme and others will speak. We will keep you posted on this.
His family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations can be made in his memory to:
The Thomas Berry Foundation
c/o Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim
29 Spoke Drive
Woodbridge, CT 06525
His death was announced by his foundation on its website, www.thomasberry.org.
Berry's books and lectures inspired a devoted lineage of academicians and environmentalists to explore religion, human nature and ecology.
He left the monastic life for decades of study of global cultural and religious history and then, beginning in the 1980s, wrote a string of books relating cultural and spiritual evolution to the natural history of the planet and the universe.
Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent glorying in itself and despoiling the world, was poised to embrace its role as a vital part of the larger, interdependent ''communion of subjects'' in the cosmos. The result, he wrote, would be a new era, which he called the Ecozoic, following 65 million years of the Cenozoic era.
In this new era, he hoped for concrete changes like population control (he criticized the Catholic Church for not doing more in this regard) and respecting and preserving the habitats of all living things as a fundamental right.
He said the transformation of humanity's priorities would not come easily. It would require what he called ''the great work'' -- the title of one of his books -- in four realms of endeavor: the political and legal order; the economic and industrial world; education; and religion.
Colleagues and admirers say he left an imprint on fields ranging from childhood education to green architecture, not only through his writing but also through his persona.
FOCUS ON NATURE
William Nathan Berry, named for his father, was born on Nov. 9, 1914, in Greensboro, the third of 13 children. He alluded to how his focus on the spiritual power of nature grew out of exploring woods and fields as a child, particularly his stumbling upon a lily-dotted meadow when he was about 11.
He later recalled the insight that shaped his thinking: ''Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformation is good; what is opposed to this meadow or negates it is not good.''
CRASSLY COMMERCIAL
When he was 20, he sought to remove himself from a world he recalled as ''crassly commercial'' in a 2001 profile in The National Catholic Reporter, and entered a monastery of the Passionist Order of the Catholic Church, taking the name Thomas. He was ordained in 1942, but pursued the life of a scholar, receiving a doctorate from the Catholic University of America with a dissertation on the philosophy of history.
He traveled to China in 1948 to teach at Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing, but with the rise of Mao Zedong, returned to the United States a year later. He studied Chinese language and culture at Seton Hall University and Sanskrit and South Asian culture at Columbia, then served as a United States Army chaplain in Germany from 1951 to 1954.
Berry returned to teaching, first at Seton Hall and St. John's University. From 1966 to 1979, he taught at Fordham University.
He is best known for his later writing on the human place in the cosmos, beginning with ''The Dream of the Earth'' in 1988.
Berry is survived by a sister, Margaret, of Greensboro, and four brothers: Francis, Stephen and Thomas, all of Greensboro, and Benedict, of Charlotte, N.C.
We will be at the funeral celebration of his life in Greensboro on Wednesday, June 3rd. Thomas will be buried at the Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro, Vermont on June 8th. We are also planning a memorial service in New York this September at the Cathedral of St John the Divine where Paul Winter will play and Brian Swimme and others will speak. We will keep you posted on this.
His family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations can be made in his memory to:
The Thomas Berry Foundation
c/o Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim
29 Spoke Drive
Woodbridge, CT 06525
The Rev. Thomas Berry, a Roman Catholic priest who called himself a ''geologian'' and whose influential writings were an early call to humanity to save nature in order to save itself, died in his birthplace, Greensboro, N.C., on Monday. He was 94.
His death was announced by his foundation on its website, www.thomasberry.org.
Berry's books and lectures inspired a devoted lineage of academicians and environmentalists to explore religion, human nature and ecology.
He left the monastic life for decades of study of global cultural and religious history and then, beginning in the 1980s, wrote a string of books relating cultural and spiritual evolution to the natural history of the planet and the universe.
Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent glorying in itself and despoiling the world, was poised to embrace its role as a vital part of the larger, interdependent ''communion of subjects'' in the cosmos. The result, he wrote, would be a new era, which he called the Ecozoic, following 65 million years of the Cenozoic era.
In this new era, he hoped for concrete changes like population control (he criticized the Catholic Church for not doing more in this regard) and respecting and preserving the habitats of all living things as a fundamental right.
He said the transformation of humanity's priorities would not come easily. It would require what he called ''the great work'' -- the title of one of his books -- in four realms of endeavor: the political and legal order; the economic and industrial world; education; and religion.
Colleagues and admirers say he left an imprint on fields ranging from childhood education to green architecture, not only through his writing but also through his persona.
FOCUS ON NATURE
William Nathan Berry, named for his father, was born on Nov. 9, 1914, in Greensboro, the third of 13 children. He alluded to how his focus on the spiritual power of nature grew out of exploring woods and fields as a child, particularly his stumbling upon a lily-dotted meadow when he was about 11.
He later recalled the insight that shaped his thinking: ''Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformation is good; what is opposed to this meadow or negates it is not good.''
CRASSLY COMMERCIAL
When he was 20, he sought to remove himself from a world he recalled as ''crassly commercial'' in a 2001 profile in The National Catholic Reporter, and entered a monastery of the Passionist Order of the Catholic Church, taking the name Thomas. He was ordained in 1942, but pursued the life of a scholar, receiving a doctorate from the Catholic University of America with a dissertation on the philosophy of history.
He traveled to China in 1948 to teach at Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing, but with the rise of Mao Zedong, returned to the United States a year later. He studied Chinese language and culture at Seton Hall University and Sanskrit and South Asian culture at Columbia, then served as a United States Army chaplain in Germany from 1951 to 1954.
Berry returned to teaching, first at Seton Hall and St. John's University. From 1966 to 1979, he taught at Fordham University.
He is best known for his later writing on the human place in the cosmos, beginning with ''The Dream of the Earth'' in 1988.
Berry is survived by a sister, Margaret, of Greensboro, and four brothers: Francis, Stephen and Thomas, all of Greensboro, and Benedict, of Charlotte, N.C.
We will be at the funeral celebration of his life in Greensboro on Wednesday, June 3rd. Thomas will be buried at the Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro, Vermont on June 8th. We are also planning a memorial service in New York this September at the Cathedral of St John the Divine where Paul Winter will play and Brian Swimme and others will speak. We will keep you posted on this.
His family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations can be made in his memory to:
The Thomas Berry Foundation
c/o Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim
29 Spoke Drive
Woodbridge, CT 06525
His death was announced by his foundation on its website, www.thomasberry.org.
Berry's books and lectures inspired a devoted lineage of academicians and environmentalists to explore religion, human nature and ecology.
He left the monastic life for decades of study of global cultural and religious history and then, beginning in the 1980s, wrote a string of books relating cultural and spiritual evolution to the natural history of the planet and the universe.
Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent glorying in itself and despoiling the world, was poised to embrace its role as a vital part of the larger, interdependent ''communion of subjects'' in the cosmos. The result, he wrote, would be a new era, which he called the Ecozoic, following 65 million years of the Cenozoic era.
In this new era, he hoped for concrete changes like population control (he criticized the Catholic Church for not doing more in this regard) and respecting and preserving the habitats of all living things as a fundamental right.
He said the transformation of humanity's priorities would not come easily. It would require what he called ''the great work'' -- the title of one of his books -- in four realms of endeavor: the political and legal order; the economic and industrial world; education; and religion.
Colleagues and admirers say he left an imprint on fields ranging from childhood education to green architecture, not only through his writing but also through his persona.
FOCUS ON NATURE
William Nathan Berry, named for his father, was born on Nov. 9, 1914, in Greensboro, the third of 13 children. He alluded to how his focus on the spiritual power of nature grew out of exploring woods and fields as a child, particularly his stumbling upon a lily-dotted meadow when he was about 11.
He later recalled the insight that shaped his thinking: ''Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformation is good; what is opposed to this meadow or negates it is not good.''
CRASSLY COMMERCIAL
When he was 20, he sought to remove himself from a world he recalled as ''crassly commercial'' in a 2001 profile in The National Catholic Reporter, and entered a monastery of the Passionist Order of the Catholic Church, taking the name Thomas. He was ordained in 1942, but pursued the life of a scholar, receiving a doctorate from the Catholic University of America with a dissertation on the philosophy of history.
He traveled to China in 1948 to teach at Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing, but with the rise of Mao Zedong, returned to the United States a year later. He studied Chinese language and culture at Seton Hall University and Sanskrit and South Asian culture at Columbia, then served as a United States Army chaplain in Germany from 1951 to 1954.
Berry returned to teaching, first at Seton Hall and St. John's University. From 1966 to 1979, he taught at Fordham University.
He is best known for his later writing on the human place in the cosmos, beginning with ''The Dream of the Earth'' in 1988.
Berry is survived by a sister, Margaret, of Greensboro, and four brothers: Francis, Stephen and Thomas, all of Greensboro, and Benedict, of Charlotte, N.C.
We will be at the funeral celebration of his life in Greensboro on Wednesday, June 3rd. Thomas will be buried at the Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro, Vermont on June 8th. We are also planning a memorial service in New York this September at the Cathedral of St John the Divine where Paul Winter will play and Brian Swimme and others will speak. We will keep you posted on this.
His family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations can be made in his memory to:
The Thomas Berry Foundation
c/o Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim
29 Spoke Drive
Woodbridge, CT 06525
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