By Bryan Marquard

January 23, 2014

En route from his place at the pulpit as a Roman Catholic parish priest to his tiny basement office in Memorial Church as Harvard University’s first humanist chaplain, Tom Ferrick set aside beliefs that had provided sustenance after his parents died when he was a child.

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“The notion that we all stand in need of redemption is antihumanist,” he told the Globe in 1990. “The fact that ordinary human beings are capable of love, compassion, and sacrifice, independent of theology, is proof that we can indeed be good without God.”

Mr. Ferrick, who served for more than 30 years as Harvard’s humanist chaplain and previously was the leader of the Ethical Society of Boston, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease Dec. 30 in Cambridge, where he had lived. He was 84.

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