Volume 6, Issue 10, June 1997


A HEALTHY PLANET IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

One of the greatest failures in the total course of Christianity is the failure of Christians to respond to the crisis of the earth, declared the Rev. Thomas Berry, retired Roman Catholic priest at the Spring Convocation of St. Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, when an honourary degree was conferred upon him.

"By harming the earth we harm ourselves," Berry stressed. "World religions share blame for ecological catastrophes," he said.

Humankind is suffering from a disease that threatens the existence of the planet, said Berry pointing out that anybody who destroys the air, the water, the soil and living forms is committing "a deep cultural pathology. Nothing this serious has happened to the planet in 65 million years," he said. The religions, and particular Christianity, share blame for what has happened to the earth's environment, he declared.

Much of the worst environmental damage to the world is the work of European Christians, who believed they were doing the right thing.

"There's hardly any natural form on the planet that has not suffered imperilment by a people that thought of themselves as the wisest, the most spiritual, the most competent," said Berry, adding, "There is some kind of fixation in Europeans that they held the answer to everything."

"Good people are dangerous because good people with an adequate idea of what's good, the better they are, the worse the consequences," argued Berry.

Berry stated the heart of the problem is the ability of human institutions, be they religious, political, economic or intellectual, to consider anything but their own narrow interests, without any regard for other life forms.

"That is the catastrophic way of seeing the world. Religions are too biased, governments too subservient, the economists too acquisitive, the universities should have some sense," Berry exclaimed.

It is the obtuseness of religious people to think that we can damage the outer world without damaging the inner world, Berry said. "The inner life of the human has to be activated by the outer world of nature. If that doesn't take place, then humans will not have any real spiritual sense."

And despite humankind's generally dismal record in recognizing that connection, Berry remains confident that the earth can be saved for future generations. "There's always hope, and the planet has a great deal of resilience," he said, and called upon those who manage the earth to begin to act with sense.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.