20 Facts About Thomas Berry

Thomas Berry, CP was a Catholic priest, cultural historian, and scholar of the world's religions, especially Asian traditions.

Thomas Berry rejected the label "theologian" or "ecotheologian" as too narrow and not descriptive of his cultural studies in history of religions.

Thomas Berry 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.

Thomas Berry 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.

Thomas Berry said the transformation of humanity's priorities will not come easily.

Thomas Berry later elaborated this experience into a set of "Twelve Principles for Understanding the Universe", which became the basis for his contributions to Earth Jurisprudence.

Thomas Berry began studying cultural history, especially the world's religions.

Thomas Berry received his doctorate in history from The Catholic University of America, with a thesis on Giambattista Vico's philosophy of history.

Thomas Berry then studied Chinese language and Chinese culture in China and in the US, and learned Sanskrit for the study of Hinduism.

Thomas Berry published a book on Buddhism and one on the Religions of India.

Thomas Berry taught Asian religions at universities in New Jersey and New York.

Thomas Berry then became the founder and director of the graduate program in the history of religions at Fordham University.

Thomas Berry 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, Thomas Berry developed into a historian of the Earth and its evolutionary processes.

Thomas Berry was influenced by the work of the Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and he served as president of the American Teilhard Association.

Thomas Berry took Teilhard's major ideas on evolution and expanded them into an epic story to which we belong.

Thomas Berry completed two final books of essays in 2009, The Sacred Universe and The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth.

Thomas Berry was featured in the 2007 documentary What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire.

Thomas Berry's work is disseminated and discussed by the Thomas Berry Foundation, the American Teilhard Association, the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, and the Journey of the Universe project.

Thomas Berry's papers are archived at the Environmental Science and Public Policy Archives in the Harvard Library.