Father Thomas Berry, CP, was honored on Saturday, September 26, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City at a memorial service that followed the yearly award ceremony by the Thomas Berry Foundation. Fr. Thomas was an honorary canon of the cathedral.

Members of Fr. Berry’s large family from Greensboro, NC, attended the ceremony, as well as many of his former students and friends from North America and throughout the world. Fr. Joseph Jones, the Passionist Provincial, was present and Fr. Stephen Dunn, a long-time associate of Fr. Thomas, was one of the speakers. Text of Fr. Dunn’s speech: Remembering Thomas Berry.pdf

The Thomas Berry Foundation conducted the ceremony. The foundation, directed by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, was organized in 1998 to promote Fr. Thomas’ ideas on the environment, especially through the work of The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University.

The 2009 Thomas Berry Award Recipient was Mr. Martin S. Kaplan.

Among the speakers at the Berry memorial was the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Muta Maathai, from Kenya, who spoke of Fr. Thomas’ influence on her. Honored for her work in Africa on ecology, she introduced the idea of planting trees throughout the continent, and through the Green Belt Movement assisted women in planiting over 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds.

Other speakers were Ann Berry Somers, Fr. Thomas’ niece, Professor William Theodore De Bary, who taught East Asian Studies at Columbia University and was a friend of Fr. Thomas since they met in China in the late 1940s, John Grim of The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University, Brian Swimme, a long time associate of Fr.Thomas, and Sr. Miriam MacGillis, OP, of Genesis Farm.

Aso in attendance was Brother Conrad Federspiel, CP, a faithful companion and friend of Fr. Thomas while he directed the Riverdale Center for Religious Research at the Passionist foundation along the Hudson River.