Published on June 10, 2009

Sculptor Frederick Franck dedicated this work to Thomas Berry in 2006. A plaque at its base reads, “Like that of St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas Berry’s life testifies to the indestructible human spirit, the surviving triumph of human wisdom over all the follies and cruelties of our generation.” The sculpture stands on the grounds of the Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro where Father Thomas Berry was buried June 8.  Photos by Joseph Gresser

GREENSBORO — Thomas Berry, a priest and scholar who described himself as a geologian, was buried in a meadow here Monday afternoon. The funeral, one of four services held in his honor at different places that were significant in his long life, was attended by over 100 people most of whom regarded him as a mentor. He encouraged the establishment of Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro. 

Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest of the Passionist Order, was born in 1914 and ordained in 1942. He died on the first of June. During his 94 years Mr. Berry had at least three distinct careers, according to one of his former students, Daniel Sheridan, who recently retired as vice president of St. Joseph’s College of Maine. They were as a student of Chinese philosophy, a teacher of religions of the world and of the Earth’s history and theology.

Mary Evelyn Tucker, Mr. Berry’s literary executor and with her husband, John Grim, the director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale  University, said he was primarily a cultural historian. That was the unifying thread in his life’s work, she said.

In a biography posted on the web site http://www.thomasberry.org, Ms. Tucker says Mr. Berry went to China to study the language and philosophy in 1948. He left after the Chinese Communists surrounded Beijing on their way to their victory in 1949.

Back in the U.S. Mr. Berry taught Asian religions at Seton Hall University and St. John’s University before moving to Fordham where he began the second phase of his career by founding a graduate program in history of religions. He also founded and directed the Riverdale Center of Religious Research during this period.

Mr. Sheridan, who was a student of Mr. Berry’s at Fordham, recalls that he insisted that each of his students should master three languages and

Father Steve Dunn and Sister Gail Worcelo sit near Mr. Berry’s casket.

gain an understanding of three different religions.

“He was like a pied piper with students,” Mr. Sheridan said.

Mr. Sheridan said his teacher was “a profoundly Catholic thinker.” He said Mr. Berry had a historian’s mind, and even after a stroke left him unable to read several years ago, could recall with accuracy passages from St. Thomas Aquinas.

Mr. Berry wasn’t going beyond the church fathers, Mr. Sheridan said. “He built on them.”

Mr. Sheridan said that Mr. Berry was required to retire from Fordham when he reached age 65 in 1979. The university decided at that time to close his History of Religions program.   Mr. Berry closed the Riverdale Center in 1995 and moved back to Greensboro, North Carolina.

“When he closed down the Riverdale Center he gave me his Buddhism and Hinduism collection,” Mr. Sheridan said. The pages of the books were filled with notes written in Mr. Berry’s angular writing, he said.

Mr. Berry returned to his home town of Greensboro, North Carolina, where he entered the third phase of his career, a deep examination of Earth history combining the human experience in its context as part of the natural world — which is how he came to coin the term geologian.

Ms. Tucker said an outline of Mr. Berry’s intellectual life would start with the study of human history, move into an examination of Asian and indigenous religions, to Earth history and finally to universe history.

She said Mr. Berry was interested studying chaos and creativity in interaction.

“He was not trying to romanticize nature, but his heart was very poetic,” Ms. Tucker said.

Of some of those who have been influenced by Mr. Berry’s writing about nature, Mr. Sheridan said. “They take his conclusions, but don’t know his premises.”

Jessica Towle, who said Mr. Berry was “one of my mentors for about ten years,” helps his niece Ann Berry Somers pour a bowl of soil from his home town, Greensboro, North Carolina, into his grave.

Mr. Sheridan said Mr. Berry told him to write his whole dissertation without the usual back and forth between student and teacher. When he handed it in Mr. Berry asked only one thing of him, that he add a final chapter answering the question, “What does it mean?” That Mr. Sheridan said was Mr. Berry’s constant concern.

Those present at Mr. Berry’s burial were reminded of his concerns as they were led by Sister Gail Worcelo of the Green Mountain Monastery on a silent meditation walk through the beauties of the Vermont countryside.

Sister Gail, one of those who knew Mr. Berry and counted him as a mentor, reminded those present of an experience that Mr. Berry had early in life, that remained with him.

As a boy Mr. Berry crossed a creek near his family’s house and came across a field “covered with white lilies rising above the thick grass.”

In an excerpt from his book The Meadow Across the Creek, reprinted in the program of the service, Mr. Berry wrote, “Although the Meadow has none of the immensity or grandeur of other places, still in this little Meadow the magnificence of life as a celebration is manifested in a manner as profound and impressive as any other place I have known in these past many years.”

Sister Gail said this vision was “not so much an epiphany as a geophany. In a geotific vision he falls in love with the Earth community.”

Father Steve Dunn, who celebrated Mass, chose for his homily a text from the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus points out how God clothes the lilies of the field who “toil not, nor do they spin.” Jesus connects their circumstance with that of his listeners.

Ann Berry Somers, Mr. Berry’s niece, recalled the man she called Uncle Brother, when she was young. This because he was her uncle and all his siblings always called him brother. Her friends, when they found out Mr. Berry was a priest, called him Father Uncle Brother, Ms. Somers said.

Ms. Somers said she became close to her uncle later in life, and met him for long discussions once a week.

Her intellectual bent was more toward science she said, but Mr. Berry, while accepting science as a valuable tool believed it was not sufficient.

“Reasoning does not reveal all that is real,” her uncle insisted. The sacred aspect of nature is real and is its deepest aspect, he said.

Those present anointed Mr. Berry’s casket and shared communion in a ceremony filled with music played by friends and admirers of Mr. Berry. His plain wooden casket was carried to the gravesite near a large rough Vermont stone.

Soil from Greensboro, North Carolina, was mingled with good Vermont earth and Mr. Berry’s body was laid to rest. That done the guests gathered in groups to share a meal and recall Thomas Berry.