The news came quietly over e-mail a couple days ago.  The Rev. Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest of the Passionist Order, had died.   He was 94.   Rev. Thomas Berry… that name may not mean anything to you now, but some day, I predict, Thomas Berry will be honored as one of the great theological and ecological pioneers of our age, on a par with his intellectual predecessor, Teilhard de Chardin.

As early as 1989, Newsweek described him as “the most provocative figure among the new breed of eco-theologians.”  In fact, he called himself a “geo-logian,” an Earth Scholar.  He saw human beings, not as superior creatures designed to dominate the earth or the universe, but as interdependent with nature, part of the larger cosmos.   As he saw it, human beings have a special and profound spiritual responsibility to care for the natural world because they would not be who they are without it.     

He once wrote:  “Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of the clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.”  

For him, the universe presented a sacred, evolving story.   For him, literal readings of the book of Genesis were inadequate.  He embraced the theory of evolution from the Big Bang forward as a magnificent outpouring of the work of God over billions of years.  He called it The Great Work, the title of his most famous book.  And he said that human beings are called to continue that great work.  

As scientists warned about the potential ravages of global warming and climate change, he framed those issues – not merely as a natural crisis – but as a spiritual crisis.  For him, the great spiritual virtues are “enchantment” and “amazement.”

He leaves a rich legacy.  His work and his writings spawned a new theological approach to the universe, sometimes called “the new cosmology.”  An entire generation of theologians, environmentalists and ordinary believers have been inspired by his work to become active in work to save the planet.  

And so Thomas Berry lives on...  In death, he is perhaps a deeper part of the universe he so loved.  Rest in your new enchantment, Thomas, your new amazement.