We are filled with deep gratitude for our mentor, teacher and co-founder,  Fr. Thomas Berry (1914-2009)  Passionist priest, scholar and cultural historian.

Thomas saw himself not as a theologian but as a “geologian,” or student of Earth’s Story embedded within the Universe Story.  

For decades, Thomas worked at developing a comprehensive vision of a viable future for the Earth Community. He was president of the American Teilhard Association for ten years in the 1970′s and was indebted to the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin for helping shape his own understanding of the universe story.

Thomas Berry’s books include:

• The Dream of the Earth
• The Great Work: Our Way into The Future
• The Universe Story [co-authored with mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme]
• Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community
• The Sacred Universe
• The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth
• The Dream of the Earth

 Significant to our community is Thomas Berry’s seminal paper “Women Religious:  The Voice of Earth”  written in 1994 and delivered to the Union International of Superiors General in Rome in 1997.

In this paper Thomas celebrates the history of Catholic sisters  through the ages.  He honors the great work and influence these women have had around the world in ministering to people through education, health care, social services, alleviation of poverty, spiritual guidance and innumerable acts of service on behalf of the most vulnerable. 

Reflecting on this history, Thomas said that prior to this moment no religious community had been founded to protect Earth and its life systems.    While such a community may have been unthinkable in the past, now there is hardly any religious or human activity that should exist without Earth as the main concern.

In 1999, along with Thomas Berry we founded the first religious community (Sisters of the Earth Community at Green Mountain Monastery) with the mission:  Honoring Earth as a Single Sacred Community.

If a women’s religious congregation committed to the protection of the natural world was unthinkable in former centuries, it is now unthinkable that any such congregation should not be committed to this task.”  ~ Thomas Berry in Women Religious: The Voice of Earth