“The Sacred Universe – Earth, Spirituality and Religion in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Berry

References to Thomas Berry kept popping up in my reading, so I thought I should find out why he was quoted so often. So I turned to “The Sacred Universe – Earth, Spirituality and Religion in the Twenty-First Century”. Published in 2009, this is a collection of essays written by Berry between 1972 and 2001. Berry (who died in 2009) was a Catholic priest, cultural historian, and scholar of the world’s religions, especially Asian traditions. He also studied Earth history and evolution.

Berry displays an extraordinary breadth of knowledge and perspective that places current human activity within the timeframe of the creation and evolution of the entire universe. He argues that Western civilisation, since the Industrial Revolution, has lost its connectedness with the earth and generated a distorted view of humanity as a superior species which can utilise the rest of the earth for its own benefit (unlike indigenous peoples whose spirituality embraces balance with nature, the planet and the cosmos).

He argues that we dwell in a sacred universe, we are part of a vast evolving process, and we need to return to a sense of kinship with all beings. He sees the divine in the natural world and that extinguishment of a species is to extinguish a voice of the divine. He encourages all religions to develop a revised spirituality that places humanity in its proper balance with the rest of creation.

I’m confident that Berry would have been pleased with Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si, but equally would despair with the slow pace of real change towards his vision of a universe in balance.