Reverend Thomas V. Berg, Ph. D.

Biography

Rev. Thomas V. Berg is a Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 15, 1965. He was a member of the Legionaries of Christ from 1986 to 2009, and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood on January 1, 2000.  He pursued his B.A. in Spanish Language and Literature at Marquette University (1983-86). He received an M.A. in Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University in 1997, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Rome’s Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum in 1999. He was incardinated into the Archdiocese of New York in May of 2014. He has served as Director of Seminarian Admissions from 2013 to the present. In addition to his current focus on fundamental moral theology, his areas of specialization include natural law theory, medical ethics, and philosophical and theological anthropology. In 1998 he founded the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Catholic think-tank dedicated to fundamental research on the Western moral tradition. The institute continued under his direction until its eventual dissolution in 2010. He has served by appointment on both the ethics committee of New York’s Empire State Stem Cell Board, and the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law. He has published or been quoted in Crisis Magazine, the National Catholic Register, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post. He has co-edited a volume of essays on the topic of human embryo adoption entitled Human Embryo Adoption: Biotechnology, Marriage, and the Right to Life. He is author of Hurting in the Church: A Way Forward for Wounded Catholics, and co-author, with Dr. Timothy Lock, of Choosing Forgiveness: Unleash the Power of God's Grace.
 
Education

Ph.D., Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, Rome    

Ph.L., Gregorian University, Rome

M.A., Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

Curriculum Vitae

Most Recent Scholarship

With Kevin Flannery, SJ “Amoris Laeitia, Pastoral Discernment, and Thomas Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera, 16: 1 (2018), 81-111. 

“A Revised Analysis of the ‘Phoenix Abortion Case’ and a Critique of NNL Intentionality,” Nova et Vetera, 15: 2 (2017), 365-396.

"Amoris Laetitia and 'Pastoral Discernment': Areas of Concern"
FCS Quarterly, Spring/Summer 2017.

Most Recent Book

Choosing Forgiveness: Unleash the Power of God’s Grace. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2022. With Dr. Timothy Lock. (Click Here for Link to Amazon page)


Most Recent Articles in Christian and Secular Press

“A Self-Examination in Light of the Pillars of Formation,” The Priest, Vol. 77. No. 1 (January), 2020, 25-31.

“Seminary Formation: What we’ve learned in the past 25 years & where we’re going,” Catholic Digest, November 2019, 36-39.


Recent Conference Presentations 

Sept. 23-25, 2021. South Bend, IN, Notre Dame University. Participant. “The Truth Will Make You Free: What Promise Do National Truth and Reconciliation Processes Offer for the Catholic Church’s Response to the Sexual Abuse Crisis?”

October 3, 2019. Scranton, PA. “Prevention, Healing and Reconciliation.” Sponsored by the Healing, Reconciliation, and Hope Task Force of the University of Scranton.

June 4, 2018. New Orleans, LA. “Mercy in Action, Redemptive Suffering.” To participants at the 13th annual Child and Youth Protection Catholic Leadership Conference.

Current Projects and Research Interests

Natural law in Aquinas; ‘New Natural Law Theory’ and its critics; Amoris Laetitia, the indissolubility of marriage & pastoral ministry to the divorced and civilly remarried; pastoral ministry to victims of clergy sexual abuse.  I continue to work on a textbook in fundamental moral theology, and on a handbook— vademecum—for confessors.