|

We were sitting in the Royal York Hotel in
Toronto. Across from me, speaking in a voice
so soft | had to strain to hear him above the
surrounding people traffic, was a man many,
including myself, view as a major prophet of
our time.

Thomas Berry, a Roman Catholic theolo-
gian, studies the history of cultures. His spe-
cial interests are the environment and the
need for a mutation-like change in our
human species --- “the most serious re-ori-
entation of the human since the dawn of his-
tory” — if we are to survive.

A member of the Passionist Order, he is
founder and director of the Riverdale Centre
for Religious Research, in the Bronx, NY.

He was talking about the end of the world
not from nuclear war but from the total col-
lapse of all bio-systems due to our exploita-
tion of the planet.

Berry's analysis is harrowing. Both the
churches and the scientific community are
bankrupt, he believes, when it comes to the
environmental crunch. _

“We are afflicted with the pathology of
consumerism; all our various systems and
structures support the raping of the planet.
The different religious traditions are making
little real critique or complaint.”

The church is sensitive to suicide “but,
you can commit geocide (killing the earth)
or biocide (killing living systems) by elimin-
ating wetlands, wholesale cutting down of
forests, eliminating the habitats of varied
species and ruining lakes or even oceans.”

Whether you look at loss of topsoil, clean
water to drink, the negative, climatic effects

of global air pollution or toxic waste dis-

posal, Gerry is convinced we are into the
final stages of surrender to total devastation.

He says: “In the 20th Century, the glory of
the human (our technological, urban cul-
ture) has become the desolation of the
earth.” ,

We are

“yal Hmits on the othe
basic biological laws and destroy, destroy,
destroy.

Berry castigates the church for opting too
much for redemption -——- “the creed itself is
overbalanced in favor of redemption” —
thus ruining the integrity of the message.

“Belief in God as a personal, creative prin-
ciple, became increasingly less important;
there was too much preoccupation with the
personality of the Savior and the church
community itself.” As a result, the traditional
“story” the church offers no longer works for
humanity in the “larger, cosmic perspec-
tives.”

He argues we need a new, “meta-religious
inutatiou” in which we realize the sacred
dimension of earth. We need to return to
“the Book of Nature which was there long
before any of the scriptures of any religion
were written.”

We need a new spirituality based on the

goodness .of this God-made, natural order.
_And a new, self-limiting ethic.

“All human institutions, professions, pro-
grams, and activities must be judged pri-
marily according to the extent they either
obstruct and ignore or foster a mutually
enhancing human-earth relationship. That is
how good and evil will be calculated in the
coming years.”

The first duty is to relate in a creative way
with all other living forms.

Berry’s outlook is not one of utterly inevi-
table doom. He says: “The lost species won't
come back — ever. There is no doubt that
coming generations will live in a degraded
world. But a lot can still be saved. A lot of the
natural order can be sustained if we act
soon.”

. What gives him hope is the way human.

consciousness seems to be awakening in
communities and groups worldwide. He
notes that there are 12,000 groups today in
the United States alone “oriented to healing
the earth.” About 250 new ones come into
being every year. .

Paty BUENTs Suet

td.
Tan

i"
:

Vi
Va
i

)