Daniel Berrigan

Daniel Berrigan at the Third Annual Staten Island Freedom & Peace Festival, 2006-10-28

Daniel J. Berrigan, SJ, (born May 9, 1921) is a Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet. He achieved fame and notoriety in 1968 when he and his brother, Philip, were put on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for their involvement in antiwar protests during the Vietnam war.

Early life

Berrigan was born in Virginia, Minnesota. His mother, Frieda (née Fromhart), was of German descent. His father, Thomas Berrigan, was a second-generation Irish Catholic and active union member. Though Thomas left the Catholic Church, Daniel remained attracted to the Church throughout his youth. Although a lifelong devotee of Notre Dame, he joined the Jesuits directly out of high school in 1939 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1952. In 1954, he was assigned to teach theology at the Jesuit Brooklyn Preparatory School. In 1957 he was appointed professor of New Testament studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. That same year, he won the Lamont Prize for his book of poems, Time Without Number. Berrigan developed a reputation as a religious radical, working actively against poverty, and on changing the relationship between priests and laypersons. While at Le Moyne, he founded its International House.

From 1966 to 1970, he was the assistant director of the Cornell University United Religious Work (CURW), the umbrella organization for all religious groups on campus, including the Cornell Newman Club, later the Cornell Catholic Community. He became the pastor for the CCC, during which time he played an instrumental role in the national peace movement. He now resides in New York City and teaches at Fordham University in addition to serving as its poet in residence.

Berrigan appears briefly in the 1986 Warner Bros. film, The Mission, directed by Roland Joffé and starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons. He played a Jesuit priest and also served as a consultant on the film.

Activism

Protests against the Vietnam War

Berrigan, his brother the Josephite priest Philip Berrigan, and the famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton founded an interfaith coalition against the Vietnam War, and wrote letters to major newspapers arguing for an end to the war.

In 1967 Phillip was arrested for non-violent protest and sentenced to six years in prison. This, and his belief that his support of POWs during the war was not acknowledged and appreciated, further radicalized Berrigan against the U.S. government.

Berrigan traveled to Hanoi with Howard Zinn during the Tet Offensive in January 1968 to "receive" three American airmen, the first American POWs released by the North Vietnamese since the U.S. bombing of that nation had begun. The event was widely reported in the news media and has been discussed in a number of books.

In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In the same year, he was interviewed in the anti-Vietnam War documentary film In the Year of the Pig, and later that year became involved in radical nonviolent protest. He manufactured home-made napalm and, with eight other Catholic protesters, used it to destroy 378 draft files in the parking lot of the Catonsville, Maryland, draft board on May 17, 1968. This group came to be known as the Catonsville Nine.

Berrigan was promptly arrested and sentenced to three years in prison, but went into hiding with the help of fellow radicals prior to imprisonment. While on the run, Berrigan was interviewed for Lee Lockwood's documentary The Holy Outlaw. Soon thereafter the FBI apprehended him at the home of William Stringfellow and sent him to prison. He was released in 1972.

Berrigan later spent time in France meeting with Thich Nhat Hanh, the exiled Buddhist monk and peace activist from Vietnam.

Plowshares Movement

Main article: Plowshares Movement

On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Philip, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the Plowshares Movement. They illegally trespassed onto the General Electric Nuclear Missile facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and poured blood onto documents and files. They were arrested and charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. On April 10, 1990, after ten years of appeals, Berrigan's group was re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. Their legal battle was re-created in Emile de Antonio's 1982 film In The King of Prussia, which starred Martin Sheen and featured appearances by the Plowshares Eight as themselves.

Berrigan is still involved with the Plowshares Movement.

Father Daniel Berrigan is arrested for civil disobedience outside the U.S. Mission to the U.N. in 2006

Other activism

Berrigan continues to maintain a level of activism and protests, including protests against American intervention in Central America, the 1991 Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He is also a prominent pro-life activist and speaks out against capital punishment. He is a contributing editor of Sojourners Magazine. Berrigan also supports LGBT rights and the Occupy movement.

Family

Daniel's brother, Phil and his wife, Liz McAlister, had three children: Frida Berrigan, an organizer and research associate in New York who currently serves on United for Peace and Justice's steering committee; Katie; and Jerry. Philip died in December 2002.

Publications

Berrigan later wrote the play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, which ran on Broadway for 29 performances in 1971 and was made into a movie in 1972.

Berrigan's other works include

• Love, Love at the End: Parables, Prayers and Meditations, 1968 (reprinted 1971, Macmillan Company)
• Daniel Berrigan (1972). America Is Hard To Find. New York: Doubleday (also a recording 1970). 
• Daniel Berrigan (1978). Words Our Savior Gave Us. Springfield: Templegate. ISBN 0-87243-081-2. 
• Daniel Berrigan (1973). Prison Poems. Greensboro: Unicorn Press. ISBN 0-87775-049-1. 
• Daniel Berrigan (1987). Hole in the Ground: A Parable for Peacemakers. Minneapolis: The Honeywell Project. ISBN 0-9619003-1-8. 
• Daniel Berrigan; Margaret Parker (1989). Stations: The Way of the Cross. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-060766-1. 
• Daniel Berrigan (1998). And the Risen Bread: Poems 1954-1997. New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 0-8232-1821-X. 
• Daniel Berrigan (1998). Daniel: Under the Siege of the Divine. Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House. ISBN 0-87486-952-8. http://www.bruderhof.com/e-books/Daniel.htm. 
• Daniel Berrigan (1998). Uncommon Prayer: A Book of Psalms. ISBN 1-57075-193-5. )
• Daniel Berrigan (2000). The Bride: Images of the Church. Icons by William Hart McNichols. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. ISBN 1-57075-305-9. 
• Daniel Berrigan (2007). To Dwell in Peace: An Autobiography. Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55635-473-1. 
• "Statement on Poetry." The Worcester Review IV, (1976)
• Absurd Convictions, Modest Hopes
• Geography of Faith
• Time Without Number (1957) - winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize
• The Dark Night of Resistance
• Night Flight to Hanoi
• Trial Writings (with Tom Lewis).
• Daniel Berrigan; Thich Nhat Hanh (2000). The Raft Is Not the Shore: Conversations Toward a Buddhist/Christian Awareness. Orbis Books. ISBN 1-57075-344-X. 
• Arthur J. Laffin, ed. (2003). Swords into Plowshares: A chronology of plowshares disarmament actions 1980-2003. ISBN 0-9636224-8-X. 
• Daniel Berrigan; Howard Zinn, introduction; Adrianna Amari, photographs (2007). Prayer for the Morning Headlines: On the Sanctity of Life and Death. Apprentice House. ISBN 978-1-934074-16-9. 
• Daniel Berrigan (2007). The Trouble With Our State. Yellow Bike Press. 
• Daniel Berrigan (2008). The Kings and Their Gods: The Pathology of Power. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. ISBN 978-0-8028-6043-9. 
• Daniel Berrigan (2009). No Gods But One. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. ISBN 978-0-8028-6462-8. 

Awards and recognition

• 1956 Lamont Poetry Selection
• 1974 War Resisters League Peace Award
• 1988 Thomas Merton Award
• 1989 Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award
• 1992 The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award
• 1993 Pacem in Terris Award
• 2008 Honorary Degree from The College of Wooster

Popular culture

• Dar Williams's song "I Had No Right" from her album The Green World is about Berrigan and his trial.
• Paul Simon's song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" refers to Berrigan as "the radical priest".
• Lynne Sachs's documentary film Investigation of a Flame is about the Berrigan brothers and the Catonsville Nine.
• Daniel Berrigan was interviewed about his life and activism for Kisseloff, Jeff (2006). Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s, an Oral History. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2416-6. .
• Daniel Berrigan appeared briefly in the 1986 Roland Joffé film The Mission, which starred Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons.
• In 1994, Berrigan was one of several political activists featured on an advertisement for Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Proceeds from sales of a poster of the advertisement were donated to the Children's Defense Fund.
• The character of Father Corrigan in the novel Let The Great World Spin (2009, by Colum McCann), was inspired by the life of Daniel Berrigan.

See also

• Ben Salmon
• Christian anarchism
• Christian pacifism
• Murray Polner; Jim O'Grady (1997). Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Life and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan. Basic Books. 

External links

• Plowshares Movement Chronology
• Works by or about Daniel Berrigan in libraries (WorldCat catalog)