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GREENSBORO — Father Thomas Berry, a Greensboro native and world-renowned cultural historian, died Monday at the Well-Spring retirement community. He was 94.

Berry, a Passionist Catholic priest, was considered a leading ecological thinker and held eight honorary degrees and numerous awards and honors. His ideas have influenced people across the world — from corporate globalization critic David Korten to Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai of Kenya.

Berry’s health had declined over the years and his family expected his death, said his sister, Dr. Margaret Berry.

“He had a quiet death and the family was with him when he died,” Berry said. “We have people from all over the world who are e-mailing and planning to attend one of the four services.”

Thomas Berry articulated a vision of an approaching “Ecozoic Era” in which human societies would live in a sustainable and mutually beneficial manner with the natural world. The Center for Ecozoic Studies in Chapel Hill plans to publish a tribute to Berry this year.

“It’s a big loss,” said Nelson Stover, a Greensboro resident and Berry follower. “One of the great minds of the 20th century is not with us anymore. At the same time, there’s no question that his legacy will continue.”

Born William Nathan Berry, the third child of Elizabeth and William Berry, he took the name Thomas as a young adult in honor of the Catholic saint and philosopher Thomas Aquinas.

Nearly since that time, he was a student of the earth and the human condition.

Throughout his life he conducted an ongoing study of the ecological nature of Earth, the way everything affects everything else. He realized then that human beings are a part of a larger natural order.

“The catastrophe of our time is the loss of any real human connection to the natural world,” he told a reporter in 2005. “That’s why ecology alone is not the answer because it’s a 'use’ relationship to the natural world. The earth is saying, 'You used me.”

Trees, birds — all living things — have rights, he wrote. They require that people treat the natural world not as an object, but as a living being. “If nothing has rights but humans, then everything else becomes the victim,” Berry said.

Berry’s vision has special relevance today. Concerns about climate change, species loss, and depletion of natural resources have propelled the nearly 30-year-old sustainability movement into mainstream consciousness. N.C. cities — including Greensboro and Winston-Salem — as well as universities and corporations, have hired sustainability managers to oversee initiatives such as using green building standards and encouraging people to drive less.

The Berry family will hold funeral services in Greensboro, New York and Vermont. The Greensboro service will begin with an open-casket visitation from 11 a.m. to 1:20 p.m. Wednesday in the Narthex entrance of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, 2715 Horse Pen Creek Road, followed by the memorial service at 2 p.m.

The Greensboro memorial will conclude with a reception from 4 to 5:30 p.m., hosted by the Passionists in Well-Spring Retirement Community Auditorium, 4100 Well-Spring Drive.

Donations honoring Thomas’s memory may be made to the Thomas Berry Foundation, c/o Mary Evelyn Tucker, 29 Spoke Drive, Woodbridge CT 06525. Inquiries and greetings may be made by e-mail to margare946@bellsouth.net. 
 

Contact Morgan Josey Glover at 373-7078 or morgan.josey@news-record.com